Mikal Bridges, a guarantee for Knicks in the NBA: always plays
The forward played all the games since the beginning of his career in the league in the 2018-2019 season.
Mikal Bridges Wait your moment in the corner, receive, throw and succeed. Or perfectly execute a shot from medium distance by throwing back. Or, with the great extension of the arms, press in defense, steal the ball and run in counterattack. The forward does what the team needs. It can be the top scorer of a party or be relegated to a lower offensive participation. Always with a smile.
Those scenes happen in each game of New York Knickswithout exception. The thing is Bridges has among his qualities as a player who highlights him over all: he always plays.
Bridges Not only does he play, but he plays a lot, more than anyone. So far this season 2024-2025, He played the 51 Knicks games, in which he averaged 38.3 minutes per meeting, leader of the NBA in that area.
His presence is a guarantee, a situation that his coach values to the fullest: Tom Thibodeau loves to use his five headlines as long as possible in each game to build a game identity, an absolute knowledge of the virtues and defects of the partner.
Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Og Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns share with Mikal The usual initial quintet of the Knicks. Seven different combinations among them five lead the list of trios that shared more minutes in this campaign throughout the league.
What happens with Bridges In the Knicks, which he reached in 2024, he is common in his career: Since he arrived at the NBA in the 2018-2019 season he played all the games. Yes, the 525 regular season for which their teams required it.
Phoenix Suns chose to Bridges In the tenth position of the first round of the 2018 draft and the eaves responded to expectations: he played 365 games in four and a half seasons, his production always improved from one year to another and was an important part of the team that reached the finals of 2021.
The transfer a Brooklyn Nets In the middle of the 2022-2023 campaign, as part of the agreement that led Kevin Durant to the Suns, raised the prominence of Bridges In the League. It became the main offensive weapon of the team directed by Jacque Vaughn. In the 109 matches he played, he averaged 20.9 points per game, the highest brand of his career in an NBA team.
From his arrival to the Knicks, Bridges He continued along the known path and makes him proud, he always says present.
Bridges He goes against the current at a time when many choose not to play some games to take care of their physique, they are absent from minor injuries or their coaches are the ones who make that decision to regulate the demands of so extensive seasons.
To find the first player who played more consecutive games than Bridges From the beginning of his career we must go back to the end of the 1970s and early 1980s when Terry Tyler He played his first seven full seasons with Detroit Pistons.
And before that case, we must go to the decades of ’40 and ’50 to find Bobby Wanzer (Rochester Royals), Jack Twyman (Rochester and Cincinnati Royals) and Johnny Kerr (Syracuse Nationals, Philadelphia 76ers and Baltimore Bullets).
AM850 Stats & Information provides the precise data of the players who played more games in a row since the beginning of their NBA tours.
Bridgesstill far from reaching the spectacular ‘Red’ Kerr brand, you can get to fourth place in that table in this same season.
If we put aside at what time of a player’s career we take the number of awarded games disputed, Bridges hasby far, The longest streak today and is located third in the list of those who competed from 2000 to today, only behind Derek Fisher and Andre Miller.
Bridges 2022-2023 season: 83 games and the curious game of 4 seconds
The first transfer of Bridges In the NBA it was a problem, since it ran serious risk of uninterrupted matches. February 7, 2023, Mikal He played his last game for the Suns, in the victory as a visitor against the Nets, precisely the team to which his arrival would be completed two days later. Between the procedures and confirmations, the acceptance of the operation by the League did not arrive on time so that the eave could debut in Brooklyn on February 9 against Chicago Bulls.
“He told me ‘I have to go out to play, I must be there.’ I was desperate,” said Cameron Johnson, a companion in Phoenix and also transferred to Brooklyn in the same operation, after that meeting in which neither of them participated. Yes ok Bridges He could not play, the NBA determined that it would not be computed as an absence, since it was not enabled. Bridges He felt relief and also had a challenge ahead: play 83 games although the maximum of a team is 82. He had played 56 with the Suns and the Nets still had 27 on the calendar.
“There are issues that as a coach do not want to think and the availability of the players is one of them. You want your boys to be available every night and Mikal Bridges It is a guy who is proud of that. He has done it throughout his career, so when you think about the planning of the game and you know that there is a player you will have every night, that reassures the coach’s mind, “Vaughn explained as soon as he had joined Bridges to the Nets.
In the last game of the season, Vaughn had no planned to use Bridgesbut he also did not want to cut his streak of consecutive matches. Then, they found the solution: the forward was the starter against Philadelphia 76ers, he played just 4 seconds, committed a foul and left not to enter again. Thus, the firch of meetings reached 392 and Mikal managed to dispute the unusual figure of 83 games in a single campaign.
After another full season with the Nets, the next transfer arrived, although this time there was no moving and stayed in New York to play in the Knicks.
During his visit to Barclays Center, on January 21, Bridges He met his great friend Cam Johnson again, with whom he had shared practically his entire career in the NBA except his first year in the Suns.
Bridges’ particular food custom
The feeding of professional athletes is a giant and increasingly important universe in the development of their careers. The offer goes from conventional to the most extravagant. The diet of Bridges break with any type of argument and exceeds the limits of the expected: the eaves consumed food from Chipotlethe fast food house of Mexican origin, every day for at least ten years in a row since 2013.
“I ask for white rice, without beans, double chicken, medium and soft sauce, corn and lettuce,” he said Bridges In an interview with GQ in the 2023-2024 season.
“I have friends and family who make fun of me a bit,” he was sincere Bridges. He added: “It’s too fire not to choose it every day.”
The diet worked, at least for Mikal. His presence in each game began even before his arrival at the NBA. At the University of Villanova, in which he was Hart and Brunson’s partner and with whom he won the titles of the NCAA in 2016 and 2018, he also always said present: he played the 116 possible matches in his four years of university basketball player. On November 17, 2023, the Wildcats honored Bridges With the retirement of your 25 shirt.
Mikal: A quiet man, without excessive luxuries and with his dog as a great companion
TO Bridges The Lights of the Big Apple do not blind. Since he lives in New York, first as a Net player and after the Knicks, Mikal enjoys the city. The spiky forward tries to be one more in that huge and multicultural city, especially out of season, when he has more free time to tour it. Testing different restaurants is one of its pleasures.
Until his first professional contract that led him to the hot state of Arizona, Bridges He had always lived in Philadelphia, his city of birth, and surroundings. After four and a half years in the distant west, he would reach the big city. “I liked having a big house and the tranquility of Phoenix, but I love to live in New York,” he said in a conversation with GQ.
Single, relaxed and hoping that the woman of her life will arrive unexpectedly as in a romantic comedy and not for being a recognized basketball player. In fact, he suggests that at the moment he chooses singleness and says he does not participate in appointment apps. Bridges Try to move through New York as anyone. While he likes to leave, he escapes the parties and does not drink alcohol during the season.
Bridges He is single, but he is not alone. Sonny, his dog, is his great partner. Mikal Do not spend more money, although it perfectly knows that it has enough quantity to live without worries and give the tastes you want, but it makes exceptions with Sonny: if it is for the dog, there are no limits to buy a new belt, a necklace or lo that he wants.
“I like to meet people and I appreciate that they value me as a normal guy, calm,” he said Mikal. “I try to tell everyone that I am like the others, that I only differentiate us that I practice a sport professionally and win more money.”
Mikal Bridges Build bridges. He does it between the superstars and the earthly players who live as common people. Also, between the past and the future of the NBA: he always plays, as it was more common at another time, and wants to leave the legacy of his pride in doing so.
