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Wednesday marked the fourth and final time the Knicks and their Atlantic Divison foe, the Nets, will play each other during the 2022-23 regular season and, prior to tip-off, Brooklyn’s newly acquired building block Mikal Bridges’ comments regarding New York’s Jalen Brunson were revealed.
During the hours leading up to the contest, Steve Serby of the New York Post published a piece focused on a Q&A previously held with Bridges and, during their conversation, the forward revealed what he believes makes the Knicks’ point guard “unique.”
“His IQ, his footwork, but it’s just his work ethic is crazy, but … he just doesn’t miss, like he’s very efficient,” Bridges said.
Bridges and Brunson spent three years as teammates together during their collegiate days at Villanova from 2016 to 2018, winning two NCAA Championships along the way. Now both in New York, with Wednesday’s game, the two have squared off against each other twice as cross-borough rivals, with the Knicks coming away victorious both times.
Through these showdowns, Brunson has found himself boasting phenomenal averages of 39.5 points, 5.5 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game whilst shooting an unbelievably efficient 76.9% from the floor, thus furthering Bridges’ comment stating that his former Wildcat teammate “just doesn’t miss.”
Knicks Guard Receiving Ample Praise
Bridges isn’t the only one who has been found heaping praise upon the Knicks’ point guard, as his play since the start of the new year has turned several heads and has earned him quite a bit of attention.
During a recent episode of his podcast “The Old Man and the Three Things,” former NBA sharpshooter JJ Redick went on record as saying that the fifth-year pro’s play from the start of January onward has been better than virtually any other guard in the league.
“A few weeks ago on First Take they let me do 60-seconds on Jalen Brunson and I gave him some love. And what I said was, since January 1, since, you know, the start of the new year, he’s playing as well as any guard in the NBA outside of Damian Lillard. I said that, that was a direct quote right there. And the responses to that showed me how many f*cking casual fans there are…You could just watch the game and see what Jalen Brunson does on a nightly basis and how important he is, especially in clutch,” Redick said.
Soon after Redick’s comments made their way through the news cycles, former Knicks big man and 2016 NBA Champion Channing Frye only went on to further strengthen this sentiment, and even praised New York for their decision to sign him in free agency this past offseason.
“This was the biggest and best signing of the summertime…The Knicks are legit, I haven’t said that since 1972,” Frye said.
Coming into Wednesday night’s game against Brooklyn where he dropped 39 points in the Knicks’ blowout 142-118 win, Brunson saw himself posting stellar season averages of 23.6 points, 6.2 assists, and 3.6 rebounds on 47.9% shooting from the floor and 40.1% shooting from deep.
Josh Hart Thinks Knicks Can Make a Run
In a February 28 article penned by SNY’s Ian Begley, it was revealed that Knicks wing Josh Hart has high hopes for this club as they make their way toward the 2022-23 postseason, with the veteran going as far as to state that they have the capability of making a serious run should they continue to stay focused and build up their chemistry as a collective unit.
“I think we have a team that can make some noise. I think it’s a team that can make a run and surprise some people,” Hart said, via Begley. “We gotta continue building, but that’s something I’m extremely excited about, something that we all talk about a little bit. We try to take it game by game, but that’s definitely in the back of our mind. We want to keep pushing. We don’t want to make the playoffs. We want to make a run in the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest thing and I think we have the capability to do that. We have to continue to build and continue to grow. We can’t get complacent where we are right now.”
Since first making his way onto the hardwood in a Knicks jersey back on February 11, New York has gone on a seven-game winning streak while New York as a whole boasts the best offensive rating (123.1), the ninth-best defensive rating (111.2), and the second-best net rating (11.9) in the entire league.
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