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New York Knicks guard Mikal Bridges is experiencing a career-low in minutes per game this season, and his time on the bench continued in Wednesday's 115-107 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden, which halted the Knicks' four-game winning streak.
Bridges logged just 17 minutes, and head coach Mike Brown made the surprising decision to bench him for the entire fourth quarter. After the game, Brown shed light on why the struggling guard is seeing fewer minutes.
"Part of it is we got two guys that are playing really well in Landry [Shamet] and [Miles McBride], and so it's hard," Brown said, via SNY. "It's gonna be hard to find minutes at times for Mikal and maybe even at times for Josh [Hart] because those two guys are playing at a pretty high level. And not just on the offensive end of the floor, but defensively too."
Brown acknowledged that the team's defensive performance against Cleveland was subpar compared to recent games. "I mean, this is one of our worst defensive games overall that we've had in the past five or six games," he continued. "We've been playing really well at that end of the floor, but they got loose tonight. And Landry and Deuce have been a big part of what we've done defensively. So, if they're playing at a high level, I got to keep trying to find ways to get those guys on the floor."
Entering the matchup, the Knicks had held opponents under 100 points in four of their last five games. However, the Cavaliers had already scored 59 points by halftime and shot 52.4% from the field. Brown believed that McBride and Shamet gave the Knicks a better chance to win, and they indeed played more minutes than Bridges in the second half. Shamet logged 17 minutes after halftime, while McBride played 13. Bridges, on the other hand, played six minutes in the third quarter and then remained on the bench as the Knicks fell to 6-5.
Bridges finished the night with two points (1-3 FG), one rebound, and two assists in his 17 minutes. It was the fifth consecutive game in which the 30-year-old failed to reach double digits in scoring. This season, he is averaging just 5.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.9 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game—a stark decline from his rookie year with the Phoenix Suns, where he averaged 8.3 points per game after being selected with the No. 10 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. Bridges also averaged 29.5 minutes per game in 2018-19, compared to just 24.4 now, marking the smallest role of his career.
Despite Bridges' struggles, Brown made it clear that no lineup change is coming. When asked about inserting Shamet into the starting five, Brown dismissed the idea. "Mikal is a starter, and so it's not a question of that," he said. "He's like a lot of players; they've had their good moments and their not so good moments. And Mikal has a proven track record of playing at a pretty high level as starter in this league. So for me to make a panic decision and change it right now, we're ten games in, or whatever we are, I'm not feeling it."
Bridges has been a full-time starter since his third NBA season, and Brown still has faith in him. It's worth noting that Bridges also struggled last regular season but caught fire in the playoffs, helping the Knicks win the NBA championship in 2026. While he wasn't struggling to this extent last season, it's still only 11 games. If his poor play persists into early 2027, difficult conversations could arise. Bridges might even find himself on the trade block, as the Knicks will likely need to move at least one significant piece next offseason to avoid being a second-apron team.
The Knicks will next face the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Friday at 7 p.m. ET in an Emirates NBA Cup game. New York lost its opener 98-93 to the Philadelphia 76ers, and another defeat could see the defending champions fail to advance from East Group B.
Originally reported by yahoo.