At no point, ever, should the New York Knicks want to play a single second with all three of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and OG Anunoby watching from the bench. They definitely shouldn’t want to do it in the NBA Finals.
Yet, in Game 2, they did. And not only did they survive, but they thrived—largely thanks to Mikal Bridges.
With Towns already sidelined after picking up his fourth foul in the third quarter, head coach Mike Brown opted to take out JB and OG as usual to close out the frame. The Knicks proceeded to play the next five minutes—roughly three in the third, and two to open the fourth—with Bridges operating alongside Jose Alvarado, Deuce McBride, Landry Shamet, and Mitchell Robinson.
For those keeping score at home, this means New York had four starters watching from the pine across nearly a half-quarter. Given how much agita Brown and the Knicks received for trying to navigate stretches without both JB and KAT to start the first round, the most self-aware fans were bracing for disaster.
They were treated to the exact opposite.
New York outscored the San Antonio Spurs by five points during this span. That’s a massive deal in a game the Knicks ended up winning by one. And the context behind it should have the Spurs shook.
We haven’t even gotten to the best part about the Bridges-plus-bench lineup
You might say New York got lucky with its Bridges-plus-bench approach because it went up against San Antonio’s reserves. You might say that.
You’d be wrong. But you might say it.
Victor Wembanyama was on the floor for more than half of this stretch. (He was the only member of the Spurs who made a shot.) And San Antonio at large had no fewer than three starters on the court versus the Bridges-plus-bench brigade.
Winning these minutes with a pesky mix of defensive pressure, offensive rebounding, and just enough shot-making is a testament to how these Knicks are built. They might have an elite starting five that ferries their title hopes, but they are also championship deep.
This particular curveball begins and ends with Bridges. For all the hemming and hawing over New York’s lack of secondary ball-handling, he's giving them another viable option both with and without Brunson on the floor.
We aren’t just talking about him getting out in transition, either. The Knicks have him running pick-and-rolls, a callback to earlier in the season when he had more on-ball responsibilities.
The Knicks keep on creating problems the Spurs didn’t think they’d have
Jumping the shark and declaring this series over would be a mistake. There’s a lot of basketball left to play.
At the same time, it’s hard not to Sharpie in the Knicks for their first title since 1973 when they have the ability to do something like win the minutes in which their three best players are on the bench.
No, we shouldn’t expect Bridges-plus-bench mobs to become a staple. Towns will populate the middle when he’s not in foul trouble. But it’s not that difficult to envision the Knicks finding themselves in this situation again. Towns battles foul trouble all the time, and he just so happens to be matching up with a 7’4” extraterrestrial in this series.
Even if the circumstances repeat themselves, Brown may decide to include at least one other start in the resulting lineup. Then again, the fact that it’s up for debate is the entire point—a nod to Bridges, and to the Knicks’ depth, and most of all, to the Spurs’ lack of counters for either.
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