PHILADELPHIA — Mikal Bridges could build a house in his native city with the many bricks he put up there.
The Philadelphia product and Villanova alumnus shot a brutal 3-for-16 from the field and 1-for-9 from 3-point range in the Knicks’ 112-109 win over the 76ers on Saturday afternoon.
He also sat the last 5:24.
Instead, coach Mike Brown decided to roll with Landry Shamet and Miles McBride down the stretch over the struggling Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, who had fouled out earlier in the quarter. It was a small lineup — with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and OG Anunoby primarily on the floor with Shamet and McBride.
That meant Anunoby had to guard Joel Embiid.
“We can’t do anything like that if you don’t have a guy like OG,” Brown said. “OG allows us to play the basketball game in a lot of different ways. So, we were able to do it.”
Shamet and McBride — and Mitchell Robinson — filled in admirably for Bridges and Towns. The Knicks had a 17-point advantage in points off the bench.
“Some nights, that [bench scoring] is going to have a huge onus on it,” Shamet said. “Some nights it’s not. Some nights it’s just going to change. I’ve been saying that the entire time I’ve been here because we have that group, it’s a carousel. Some nights, it’s going to be a heavy bench night where we come in and pick it up. Other nights, our first five have it going and the ball doesn’t find us as much. That’s the beauty of our team. We’re built that way. We’ve got to be adaptable and find ways to win games as difficulties and challenges within the game are presented to us.”
Towns managed to foul out in just 16 minutes on the floor and was minus-6. The Knicks were actually better when he was on the bench.
“We gotta just have other guys step up,” Brown said. “We can’t control the fouls called, so if somebody is in foul trouble, hopefully the next guy can step up and play the right way to help us get a win.”
