The New York Knicks are never going to get the best version of Mikal Bridges on either end of the floor unless they lighten his defensive workload. Fortunately, the solution to this issue boils down to three words: More Deuce McBride.
Bridges spent the vast majority of his time last season guarding at the point of attack. As Chris Herring of ESPN noted, he was at one point “facing 25 screens per outing, more than any player in the league's 13-year database.”
Though Bridges improved his performance over time, fighting through screens has never been his greatest strength. Teams with quicker ball-handlers caught onto this early in the schedule, and it’s a weakness that shone brightly during the Knicks’ Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Indiana Pacers. According to BBall-Index’s database of 6,227 players since 2013-14, Bridges’ 2024-25 screen navigation score ranked…6,213th.
While it was easy for fans to get frustrated watching him struggle, this isn’t an issue that lands squarely on his shoulders. The Knicks put him in a position for which he’s ill suited. That surely contributed to his rift with Tom Thibodeau, and to why the head coach eventually lost his job.
Remedying this issue now falls on Mike Brown. And it will require him doing something Thibs never did: maximizing the amount of time Bridges and McBride spend together.
Deuce McBride can make life easier on Mikal Bridges
Despite standing four inches shorter, McBride is much better at fighting through screens. His frame and center of gravity are different, and there’s more physicality to the way he defends. Where Bridges ranked in the 0th percentile of ball-screen navigation last season, McBride placed in the 99th, according to BBall-Index.
Playing these two together should be viewed as non-negotiable. McBride can defend at the point of attack, which frees up Bridges to guard secondary ball-handlers, and do more away from the rock.
Last year’s results speak for themselves. The Knicks outscored opponents by 8.58 points per 100 possessions when they played together, with a defensive rating that would have ranked eighth, according to PBP Stats. When Bridges was on the floor without him, New York surrendered the equivalent of the 24th-best defensive rating.
Committing to more of this twosome stands to benefit the offense as well. McBride fits the five-out motif more than Josh Hart, or Mitchell Robinson. Having him pick up the slack for Bridges on defense also keeps the latter fresher for offense, by lightening his two-way workload.
The Knicks should probably start Deuce McBride
McBride and Bridges just logged 1,220 tandem minutes across the regular season and playoffs. That’s not a small number. It’s not big enough, either.
Increasing their time together doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Inserting McBride into the starting lineup is the clear answer, and gives the Knicks a look at a unit that didn’t play nearly enough last year. If Brown is concerned about the spacing limitations of bench mobs featuring Hart and Robinson, then McBride at the very least should be an early entry into the game.
To simplify it even further, the soon-to-be 25-year-old racked up 1,934 minutes through both the regular season and playoffs. About 63 percent of his court time came alongside Bridges.
Both of those numbers need to go up. It doesn’t matter how the Knicks do it. They just need to get it done—for both Bridges’ sake, and their own.