The New York Knicks‘ latest win featured plenty of headlines. OG Anunoby drilled the game-winner, Jalen Brunson did his usual clutch thing, and Mitchell Robinson finally returned to the lineup.
While Anunoby deserves all the credit in the world for his clutch shot, sometimes, flowers need to be dished out to the players who were just as important—yet contributed in an under-the-radar way.
That brings us to Mikal Bridges, whose 15 points on 7 of 14 shooting added to the offensive cause. His 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 2 blocks were also a worthy reason for why New York prevailed in crunchtime, 114-113, over the Memphis Grizzlies.
It’s all good stuff for a team that finally looked complete.
Yet, the numbers can’t even begin to communicate the full story.
A specific defensive adjustment by Mikal Bridges late in the game was the New York Knicks’ crunchtime key to the victory. Better yet, it came against the uber-talented Ja Morant.
Who is Ja Morant as a player?
Despite his troubles of the last couple of years, Ja Morant is as explosive a basketball player can ever get. While nobody would confuse him with an elite outside shooter, he can knock them down if given enough room.
Through 37 games this season, Morant is shooting a career-low 43.3% from the floor while averaging 20.9 points per game. His 7.4 assists per contest still place him in worthy point guard territory, so with the ball in his hands, he’s still as dangerous as it gets.
Morant’s 55.6 true shooting percentage ranks him much closer to LaMelo Ball (54%) than it does to Jayson Tatum (58.8%) or Devin Booker (59.3%).
It’s safe to say that worrying about Morant’s blow-by and drive to the hole is much more pertinent than anything from the perimeter.
Yet, Bridges and the Knicks allowed Morant to burn them down the stretch.
The educational play
With 23.9 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Memphis called a timeout to prep for a side-out-of-bounds (SOB) situation. Thanks to Brunson’s monstrously clutch 3-pointer the possession prior, the Grizzlies trailed by a single point.
What proceeded to happen was a Morant 3-point play (the old-fashioned way)—putting Memphis up by two with just 14.4 seconds remaining.
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