After he twice was benched for most of the fourth quarter during a four-game stretch in late November, Mikal Bridges acknowledged that he’s “gotta play better.”
The Knicks wing finally looks like he has found his groove since the calendar flipped to December, including 23 points with a key long-range bucket late in Monday’s pulled-out victory in Toronto.
Bridges is putting up 22.4 points per game during the Knicks’ 4-1 run entering Wednesday’s quarterfinal matchup in the NBA Cup against the Hawks at the Garden.
He also leads the NBA in plus-minus for the month (plus-109) and in minutes per game for the season with an average of 38.3 over his first 24 appearances following an offseason trade from the Nets.
Bridges’ recent shooting numbers represent a vast improvement from his first 19 games with his new team, shooting just 30.6 percent from 3-point range through a Nov. 29 win in Charlotte.
He sat for the final 10-plus minutes of that game, after previously getting benched by Tom Thibodeau for much of the fourth quarter six days earlier in Utah during the same road trip.
Both times, Bridges noted that Thibodeau made “the right decision.”
“Go out there and win the game. That’s the biggest thing, just win the game,” Bridges said after the game against the Hornets. “But yeah, obviously, I gotta play better. With the opportunities I get, I gotta convert … I’ll be better.”
Indeed, the 28-year-old wing has connected on 45.2 percent (19-for-42) from long distance and 56.4 percent overall to open December, starting with a season-high 31-point effort against the Pelicans.
Bridges has heated up at the right time with the Knicks still alive in the second year of the league’s in-season tournament.
If they defeat the Hawks in the knockout stage Wednesday night, they will advance to face either the Bucks or the Magic in the NBA Cup semifinals Saturday in Las Vegas, with the championship slated for Tuesday of next week.
“Just play our style. Play hard,” Bridges said following Monday’s win over the Raptors. “Got to be better in transition. Them, they get out. Got to be better, just got to communicate with each other and be ready to fight.”
Each Knicks player already has earned $51,000 in prize money for reaching this stage, and that will increase to $103,000 for semifinalists, $206,000 for finalists and $515,000 per player for the Cup champions.
“I think there’s money involved, so I think there’s a lot of motivation regardless,” Jalen Brunson said after notching 20 points and 11 assists against the Raptors.
Brunson, who signed a four-year contract extension worth $156.5 million over the summer, had said last week that he hopes to continue winning in the tournament to help out lesser-paid teammates on one-year contracts or two-way deals, “and you get to go out there and try to win for them, so it means a lot.”
The Knicks lost to the Hawks in Atlanta in early November to fall to 3-4, but they have won 12 of their past 17 games.
No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher netted a season-high 33 points in that previous meeting.
Former playoff nemesis Trae Young is averaging a six-year low 20.9 points per game, but he leads the league in assists with a career-best 12.2 over the Hawks’ 13-12 start.