Photo by Jamie Smed, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsI was at 88% last night. I'm raising it.
91%.
Here's why: Mikal Bridges scored zero points in Game 3. Zero. Shot 0-for-3 from the field. 0-for-2 from the line. Four turnovers. Minus-26 in 20 minutes. Mike Brown benched him in crunch time and the Knicks immediately got better.
Read that last sentence again. The Knicks got better when their $25 million trade acquisition sat down.
Bridges is shooting 36.4% for the series. Bill Simmons said the quiet part out loud: "Anyone could have traded for that dude for four solid months." He was talking about McCollum. But the subtext is Bridges. The Knicks traded five first-round picks for a guy who can't stay on the floor in a first-round series.
Meanwhile, McCollum is averaging 27 a game with back-to-back daggers. Karl-Anthony Towns has scored 2 total fourth-quarter points in the last two games. Two. The Knicks' second and third options are disappearing at the exact moment the Hawks' role players are showing up.
Kuminga: 40 points on 61.5% shooting the last two games. Daniels: 26 rebounds and 8 steals through three games. From the guard spot. JJ put up the first 24-10-8 game in Hawks playoff history. The system has more weapons than the superteam.
Game 4 is Saturday at 6. The Hawks win that, they go up 3-1. Teams up 3-1 win the series 95% of the time.
I'm at 91%. Tell me I'm wrong.
The Tilt
Bridges going scoreless isn't a bad game. It's the Knicks' system failing against a Hawks team that has structural answers for everything New York throws at them.
— Dex Ponce
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