Smoke is beginning to rise in New York despite the Knicks comfortably sitting at the third seed. Mikal Bridges voiced some frustrations concerning heavy minutes before their thrilling 114-113 overtime win over the Trail Blazers. Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau is notorious for leaning heavily on his starters. This development within New York’s locker room concerns NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith.
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Thibodeau doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to star players’ heavy minutes. The most infamous instance involves Derrick Rose suffering a torn ACL in the 2012 playoffs in a game that the Bulls comfortably won. Thibodeau received flack for keeping him in the game when he should’ve been on the bench.
He hasn’t changed his tendencies much and the Knicks starters are experiencing it. This is Bridges first season playing under Thibodeau and it seems his body is taking the toll of the heavy minutes. He revealed that he had spoken with Thibodeau to alleviate some of the burden on the starters and trust the bench more.
In the direct game afterward, Bridges played 41 minutes before ultimately hitting the game-winning shot. Despite the victory, Stephen A. Smith took to ESPN’s First Take to share his worries regarding the current state of the Knicks.
“Tom Thibodeau is in a world of trouble,” Smith said. “Mikal Bridges ain’t say that for himself y’all. He’s speaking for the team.”
"Tom Thibodeau is in a world of trouble." 😳 @stephenasmith and @KendrickPerkins on Mikal Bridges' comments about playing too many minutes with the Knicks 👀 pic.twitter.com/lDgmU86woA
— First Take (@FirstTake) March 13, 2025
One of the major reasons Bridges’ comments come as a surprise is that he is one of the league’s Ironmen. He hasn’t missed a game throughout his career, playing in 539 consecutive matchups. For him to complain about minutes indicates that there must be a problem.
To make matters worse, Thibodeau declined any inkling of a private meeting between Bridges despite the star forward’s comments. In this situation, Smith believes Bridges has the credibility to outweigh Thibodeau’s statement.
Smith’s co-host Kendrick Perkins leaned more towards defending Thibodeau. He brought up Bridges and OG Anunoby’s elite skills as reasons to why they are called upon to play heavy minutes. Especially since they are tasked with guarding the top wings in the league.
The minutes police have been on Tom Thibodeau the whole season
The conversation surrounding minutes and the Knicks has surrounded the team the entire season. New York slowly saw their core fall to injuries in the playoffs last season. Fans didn’t want a repeat of last year so they have been adamant for Thibs to be more diligent on balancing minutes.
This season, the Knicks have four players in the top 20 in minutes played. Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges are tied for the top spot at 37.9 minutes per game. OG Anunoby is not far behind at 36.7 minutes per game. The fourth member was Jalen Brunson but he has fallen to 19th, because of theankle injury he suffered against the Lakers last week.
It is never a good thing for players to tally significant mileage ahead of the postseason. New York has suffered the consequences of this in the Thibodeau era before. If history repeats itself, Smith’s claim that Thibodeau is in trouble may very well be true.
