Fred Katz

The whole thing with Bridges that's happened over the last two years is that he's very good defending off the ball.

He's really good at getting into passing lanes still.

He's still an excellent team defender and all of that.

But his screen navigation and pick and rolls has taken a hit.

He kind of sees a screen and can shrivel up sometimes.

And against Maxey, he was so good.

Maxey is... The second efforts on Maxey is so important because...

most guys if you're going to trap somebody most guys they give up the ball and they wait a second to take a breath and maxi will immediately he just doesn't stop moving he'll get off the ball and within a millisecond he will relocate to the other side of the floor and if whoever is defending him takes that one second to catch their breath which they often do he's gone beep beep you

He is gone.

I mean, anyone is gone, let alone the fastest player in the NBA.

And Bridges' ability to just not let up on any of those plays, his ability when the Sixers were trying to put Jalen Brunson into these pick-and-rolls, and the Knicks are hedging and recovering.

Yeah, totally.

And...

part of it also is that brunson's headroom recovering on these pick and rolls and bridges is dropping back and letting brunson kind of try to stop maxi for a split second and he's guarding the area not just the player but the area so incredibly well and there were various times throughout the series where maxi's like okay i've got two guys in front of me i gotta get off the ball and

And Bridges' arms are so long and his hand placement and his body placement are so good and so smart that he's just like, he gets a steal off of it.

He was like unbelievable defensively.

And when you have him playing at that level defensively and Anobi playing at just normal Anobi levels and Hart playing at the level that he's been.

he's been a tremendous point of attack defender for them throughout this entire playoff run.

When you've got those three guys, that's kind of the vision the Knicks had for this roster.

When they put this together, that the three wings were going to be so good defensively, it would insulate them from the weak spots.