Mikal Bridges has been on the other side of this exact story before. He is the only Knick in the building who knows what going up 2-0 in the NBA Finals and then losing the title actually feels like. That is why his message before Game 3 hit differently.
The Knicks took a 2-0 lead over the Spurs in San Antonio and are heading home to Madison Square Garden for the first NBA Finals games in New York since 1999. Most of the city is already buying championship merchandise. Bridges is not.
In 2021, Bridges was a key piece of a Phoenix Suns team that won the first two Finals games over the Bucks by double digits. The Suns then lost four in a row to a Giannis-led Milwaukee squad and watched their championship window close.
“I just remember losing four straight. That’s what I remember out of that,” Bridges said Sunday at MSG, less than 24 hours before Game 3 tipped off.
“[My New York Knicks teammates] all know too, and they understand as well that the series is far from over. It’s always going to stick with you.”
That is the kind of voice every championship contender needs in the locker room. The Knicks have a roster full of guys playing on this stage for the first time. Bridges has been through the meat grinder.
The Knicks situation does look very different from that 2021 Suns squad on paper. New York stole both road games. Phoenix lost theirs at home in Games 3 and 4 to give up the series lead. Brunson is healthier than Chris Paul was. The Spurs do not have a peak Giannis on their roster, and even Victor Wembanyama is still finding his playoff legs.
None of that is a guarantee. The Spurs led the West for a reason. Wembanyama is a once-in-a-generation player who can change a game by himself in a way most opponents cannot. San Antonio’s coaching staff has had three games of film to study Brunson’s pick-and-roll patterns.
Bridges added that Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau and his staff have done “a great job” of keeping the team in a 0-0 mentality so they do not get complacent. Anyone who has watched a Thibodeau-coached team in May or June knows that is not just coachspeak. He grinds the same way after a win as a loss.
The MSG crowd will give the Knicks an enormous boost. Bridges still does not want any of his teammates relaxing. He has seen what happens when a team forgets that the Finals are not over until you win four.
The Knicks need two more wins. The Spurs need a lifeline. Game 3 is the bridge between those realities, and the guy who lived this nightmare before is making sure everyone in the locker room remembers.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
