Mikal Bridges led the Knicks with 28 points and had a wild plus-43 in Monday night’s 143-106 win over Memphis at Madison Square Garden.
But perhaps his most important contribution came on defense, as he helped shut down Grizzlies star Ja Morant, who scored just 10 points on 5-for-13 shooting in the rout.
“I thought Mikal really worked,” Tom Thibodeau said of Bridges holding Morant down.
“I thought our team did.”
It was no easy feat, as Morant has been held to fewer points just twice this season.
“A guy like that, you try to make him work,” Thibodeau said of the guard, who is in the midst of an inconsistent season. “He’s a superstar. He’s an offense unto himself. Some shots he just missed that were good shots for him that didn’t go in. But I thought our team really worked together and I really like the effort Mikal put forth. It’s not an easy job. There’s constant pressure when he has the ball and he plays incredibly fast.”
Morant was invisible during some stretches — while Bridges never was.
It was Bridges’ highest point total since he scored 41 on Christmas Day against the Spurs.
Bridges chalked up some of his success to his experience from his days with Phoenix and their matchups against Morant and Memphis in the Western Conference.
“Playing against Ja all these years, it’s a tough matchup,” Bridges said. “Especially being in the West, playing and scouting against him, it’s always tough every time we play him and their team is playing well. Just team defense, helping each other out and trusting my brother behind me.”
That’s where teammates like OG Anunoby came in.
“It was a good job by our guards at the point of attack,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “We did a great job of putting pressure on them.”
Jalen Brunson agreed.
“Obviously, we don’t want to leave anyone out on an island, especially a player like that,” Brunson said of the team’s defensive strategy against Morant. “But the way [Bridges] was able to play [Monday] night was great. A little mix of luck [since] obviously [Morant] doesn’t play like that on most nights, but I’m just happy we came out with a win.”