Knicks Star Used NFL Inspiration For Vital Takeaway

The victory was sealed when Bridges tore Jaylen Brown's chance to force a sixth period out of his hands: with the Knicks holding the magic three-point lead, Boston had three seconds to muster another equalizer. Brown caught the inbounds pass from Derrick White but was supervised by Bridges, who credited an NFL inspiration for his game-winning defense.

“I’m a [Los Angeles] Rams fan. Try Ahkello Witherspoon,” Bridges said when an observer tried to compare him to New York Jets star Sauce Gardener, per Barbara Barker of Newsday. "“I’m a football guy. I’m watching his eyes and following where the ball is at. I’m trying to get my hands as soon as I see the ball. We’re up three, so we were going to foul, just trying to track the ball and see where his eyes are at.”

Bridges lived up to his iron man reputation in more ways than one on Monday night: he became the third Knick to play at least half-a-hundred minutes in a playoff game since 1994 (51, joining past and present teammates Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart) and overcame a cold shooting night (2-of-11 in regulation) to come up big in the extra session.

"That’s who Mikal is,” Hart said of Bridges, per Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post. “He’s gotten a lot of criticism and he never lets that affect him. I don’t know how many games down the stretch he’s won for us on the defensive side alone ... He’s been a huge part of this team and sometimes that gets overlooked because people look at stats and lose sight of how valuable a player he is.”

After Brunson pushed the Knicks into an extra five minutes, Bridges played a part in the landmark plays that sealed the Knicks' victorious fate: as both teams struggled to score in the early going, he earned an acrobatic steal on the sidelines that eventually led to OG Anunoby's show-stopping, and-one dunk that gave the Knicks a permanent lead.

Bridges went on to extend that lead after Karl-Anthony Towns corralled a series of Boston misses with a corner triple that not only put the Knicks up six but silenced both the TD Garden crowd and perhaps a few critics still raw about trading five future draft picks across town to the Nets to obtain his two-way services.

Such analysis will go dormant until the two sides return to TD Garden for Game 2. But Hart hopes Bridges has finally made some permanent fans among Manhattanites for his latest postseason heroics.

“He’s a winning player. He makes winning plays," Hart lauded, per Barker. "He should be celebrated for that.”