Ahead of his first meeting of the season against his old team, Knicks star Mikal Bridges said he’s grateful for his time with the Brooklyn Nets — a pivotal chapter in the journey that ultimately brought him to Madison Square Garden.
“I’m just appreciative of wherever I came from. [Brooklyn was] just one stepping stone where I was at before I was here. So just appreciative,” Bridges said after practice in Tarrytown on Saturday. “I think every time I play Brooklyn, I just think about how my life changed when I got there — when I got traded from Phoenix to there, just how my life changed from that situation. I had a great time [with the Nets].”
Bridges arrived in Brooklyn as part of the blockbuster Kevin Durant trade to the Phoenix Suns — a deal that ended the Nets’ short-lived championship experiment. He thrived in his new role, averaging a career-high 26.1 points per game over his first 27 games with Brooklyn, then followed up with 19.6 points per game in his first full season there in 2023-24
But while the Nets stumbled to a 32-50 record, the Knicks surged to 50-32, with Bridges’ former Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo leading the way — and clowning him from across the East River.
Bridges went 44-65 during his one-and-a-half seasons in Brooklyn. Since arriving in New York, he’s gone 56-34, including last season’s 4-0 sweep of his former team in the Knicks’ first year under the new core.
“Obviously, we were losing games the last year I was there,” Bridges said. “But I never take it for granted — the time I had there, the connections I had and built with the young guys who are there now that I was teammates with.”
The Nets received Bridges, Cam Johnson, and a haul of four first-round picks and a pick swap in exchange for Durant and T.J. Warren. They later flipped Bridges to the Knicks for an unprecedented package: five first-round picks, one swap, and a second-round pick. Brooklyn entered Sunday’s matchup against the Knicks with a 1-8 record having traded Johnson to the Denver Nuggets for Michael Porter Jr.
After moving on from Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving, then flipping both Bridges and Johnson, the Nets are in a full rebuild.
“[Nets GM] Sean Marks and all them, they’re great dudes. [Nets governor] Joe Tsai, Clara [Wu Tsai], all of them,” Bridges said. “I built a lot of relationships with the coaching staff. Even Jordi [Fernandez] had been there a couple of months — I built a nice relationship with him and his coaching staff before I got traded from there to here.”
Bridges enters Sunday’s game having scored 20 or more points in two of his three full matchups against Brooklyn last season. He also checked in for a few seconds in last year’s finale to maintain his ironman streak, extending his run of consecutive games played.
FANS CROSSING ‘A LINE’
Knicks captain Jalen Brunson said he’s received hate mail throughout his career — and that some of it has crossed deeply personal lines.
“It’s definitely crossed a line a couple of times,” Brunson said after practice on Friday. “Actually, I would say more than a couple of times. Said some pretty messed up s—.”
The discussion was sparked by recent comments from Giants kicker Graham Gano, who told reporters he’s regularly targeted online after missed field goals — including messages urging him to harm himself or die from illness.
“Shoot, ever since sports betting started happening, I get people telling me to kill myself every week because I’ll hit a kick that loses them money [or] I’ll miss a kick and it loses them money,” Gano said on Nov. 6. “The other day, somebody told me to get cancer and die.”
Brunson said he leans on his inner circle — family, close friends, and teammates — to stay grounded when the messages pile up.
“They keep me level-headed — when it’s positive, when it’s negative,” he said. “I have a very close circle that I turn to when I start to get doubt, or I start to get nervous or see stuff like that.
“I try not to let it get to me, but there are definitely times that I reach breaking points. I try not to let the world see it.”
Still, Brunson said the anonymity of online criticism doesn’t excuse the cruelty.
“It definitely crosses a line. I really don’t wish that on anybody,” he said. “I don’t understand why people think it’s alright to press send when s—’s hateful. When I say some s— — the worst things you’re thinking of, it’s worse than that.”
