Top 5 Questions for Round One

What I'm wondering about Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns, one embattled head coach, and more.

Good morning! We got the playoff schedule for round one, which seems to benefit the Knicks given how spread out the first four games are:

You know what would be fun? Not having to deal with those last three TBD’s.

Before we get to today’s newsletter, please be on the lookout for a call for mailbag questions coming your way this morning. Thanks in advance for your contributions!

Top 5 Questions for Round One

Since yesterday focused more on X’s & O’s, I’m going in a bit of a different direction for today’s five questions. For some more in depth talk about the battle lines of this series, be sure to check out yesterday’s pod with Fred Katz, as well as last night’s series preview with DJ Zullo and Bryce Simon.

5. It it finally Mikal Bridges’ time to shine?

Underwhelming.

It’s the only fair way to describe Mikal Bridges initial Knicks season. The question now is whether he’ll have an opportunity to rewrite that narrative next year, or whether he leaves the organization with a sour enough taste in its mouth that the front office will look to part ways with the swingman just a year after giving up a gargantuan haul to bring him aboard.

That question will be answered in the next few weeks, because if Bridges can have a productive postseason, any sins from the last 82 games will be forgiven.

Thus far, those sins have largely materialized against the premier opponents. While points aren’t everything, it’s interesting to note that out of the 29 different opponents he’s faced, Mikal’s scoring averages against the other top-four seeds in each conference this season rank 29th (Lakers), 28th (Pacers), 27th (Thunder), 25th¹ (Nuggets), 24th (Celtics), 22nd (Cavs) and 14th (Rockets).

Now for the good news: among the 14 other Eastern Conference teams, Bridges has performed best against the Pistons. He’s averaged 19.8 points on a 68.9 effective field goal percentage, which is his second highest efficiency among all NBA opponents behind only the Kings.

Looking at Detroit’s starting five, it stands to reason that Detroit will have no choice but to try and hide Tim Hardaway Jr or Malik Beasley on Bridges, which is exactly the sort of matchup he was brought in to exploit. The Pistons’ centers will also play a lot of drop coverage, which is a defensive scheme Mikal has found success against.

It’s going too far to say that Bridges needs to have a big scoring output for the Knicks to win, but it’s hard to see him having a huge offensive series and them not coming out on top.

Defensively is where he can absolutely make his mark. He’ll likely get the first shot at defending Cade Cunningham, and if he can make life difficult enough for Detroit’s All-Star, the Pistons have no chance.