The Tom Thibodeau Minutes Police has a new deputy: Mikal Bridges.
The Knicks‘ Iron Man and owner of the NBA’s longest consecutive games streak said he asked the head coach to consider cutting back on the starters’ minutes, arguing the bench players deserve more time on the floor.
“Sometimes it’s not fun on the body,” Bridges said on Wednesday, via The New York Post’s Stefan Bondy.
“You’ll want that as a coach but also talked to him a little bit knowing that we’ve got a good enough team where our bench guys can come in and we don’t need to play 48, 47 [minutes],” he continued. “We’ve got a lot of good guys on this team that can take away minutes. Which helps the defense, helps the offense, helps tired bodies being out there and giving up all these points. It helps just keeping fresh bodies out there.”
Bridges, who has appeared in 538 straight games since he entered the league in 2018, is playing a career-high 37.8 minutes per night in his debut season with the Knicks after coming over in a trade this offseason that saw five draft picks head across the East River to the Nets.
On the season, the Knicks have three players in the Top 10 in the NBA in total minutes with Jalen Brunson (2,162; 10th) and Josh Hart (2,307; 2nd) behind Bridges (2,420; 1st). And when going by minutes per game, Hart matches Bridges for the top spot in the NBA in that category with OG Anunoby (18th most minutes overall) coming in sixth most at 36.6 per night. Brunson is the fourth New York starter in the Top 20 of that category at 35.4 minutes per game.
Before Wednesday’s game in Portland, the head coach said a conversation with Bridges did not take place and defended his minutes distribution.
“We never had a conversation about it,” Thibodeau said, via The Athletic’s James L. Edwards. “The facts are the facts. Jalen is 20th or 21st in average minutes. [Karl-Anthony Towns] is below that. Your wings play more. They’re matched up against primary players.”
Thibs continued that since wings like Bridges and Hart are matched up against the other team’s wings, often a team’s best players in the modern NBA, they will be called upon to play in the mid-to-high 30s in minutes each night. He added you wouldn’t play reserves against the likes of LeBron James or Jayson Tatum.
Bridges said the head coach was receptive to the idea, but the veteran said he thinks that Thibs is a bit set in his ways.
“I think he’s not arguing about it. Sometimes I think he just gets in his ways and he gets locked in. He just wants to keep the guy out there,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to tell him, like Landry [Shamet], for example… keep him out there, they’re playing well.”
(Shamet in 32 games this year is averaging just 11.8 minutes, the lowest in his seven-year career.)
Of course, this is not a new narrative to follow the Knicks head coach. During last season, after injuries to Mitchell Robinson, Julius Randle, Anunoby, Bojan Bogdanovic, and then Robinson and Anunoby again, criticism from outside the locker room grew.
“You expect ignorance when people have no idea what goes on in this building,” Hart said before Game 5 of the second-round series.
“People love to have a narrative or label and they love to run with it,” he continued. “None of those guys are here watching us practice. None of those guys are watching what we do. At the end of the day, seventh year of my career, I probably had more off days [than] the other years.”
That series against Indianapolis included a foot injury to Brunson in Game 2 and an ankle injury during the Game 7 loss. The All-Star guard is currently on the shelf for a few weeks after turning his ankle late in an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Last May, Hart was having none of the talk that the heavy minutes the head coach asks of his players contributed to the spate of injuries.
“It’s just idiotic to put that on him,” he said during last year’s playoffs. “And [Thibodeau is] not going to say anything about it, he’s going to take that on the chin and keep it moving, but at the end of the day, people are going to say things for clicks, people are going to say things and make them feel like they stuck it to him or they made something.
“… If they’re not in the building or they’re not in that locker room, whatever they say it doesn’t mean anything.”
Of course, now, the calls are coming from inside the house.
“I think it’s something you never really get used to,” Bridges said on Wednesday. “Your body is going to feel how it is every year. But I’ve been a part of it for a while, knowing how to take care of my body through those situations and just trying to do as much as I can.”
