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Mikal Bridges is not ready to be the Phoenix Suns’ third option that was promised yet. His scoring average is down compared to last year (13.5 points per game to 12.7), as is his efficiency from the field (54.3 percent to 52 percent) and from 3-point range (42.5 percent to 37.6 percent).
But in a Suns offense that can slice opponents up in a variety of ways beyond its two main surgeons in Chris Paul and Devin Booker, Bridges still represents the ultimate X-factor. He’s the final trump card that makes Phoenix downright unfair, the death-inducing thousandth cut, the two-way force of nature that turns the tide of games when his All-Defensive Team defense combines with scoring production.
It’s a discomforting thought for defenses being forced to pick their poison against the Suns.
“You got a lot of poison out there,” Deandre Ayton said. “It’s a lot of poison.”
In Tuesday’s anticipated, nationally televised showdown with the Brooklyn Nets, Bridges put forth one of the best performances of the year, setting a new season high for the second game in a row with 27 points on 10-of-14 shooting. On top of that, he chipped in 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 1 block. Oh, and he chased around James Harden and Kyrie Irving for 40 minutes, holding the Beard to 6-of-19 shooting and limiting Irving to 26 points.
Devin Booker may have finished with a game-high 35 points, but Bridges’ hyper-efficient production on both ends was one puncture too many for the Kevin Durant-less Nets.
“Mikal’s defense and having 27 points, that’s — Book does what he does, and I say it all the time, we don’t take it for granted, but the energy that Mikal and Jae [Crowder] and Cam Johnson put forth on defense, and then for Mikal to give us that kind of point production, is huge for us,” Monty Williams said.
Aside from topping Sunday’s previous season-high 26 points with 27 against the Nets, Tuesday’s performance marked the first time in Bridges’ four-year NBA career that he’s ever dropped 20+ points in back-to-back games.
The 25-year-old wing is averaging 23.7 points on .692/.417/.923 shooting splits over the last three contests, but even in the midst of one of the best NBA scoring runs, it’s hard to take this sample size theater as a sign he’s turning the corner.
There’s no question about his defensive value; he should be a no-brainer All-Defensive First Team selection and is even a candidate for Defensive Player of the Year. But we’ve seen promising scoring stretches from Bridges followed up by single-digit outings in the past, which begs the question: Is this time any different?
The short answer to that question is “probably not,” for a number of reasons.
At 12.5 percent, Bridges ranks in the 19th percentile in usage rate among players at his position, per Cleaning The Glass. In 50 games so far, Bridges has failed to reach double figures in 15 of them. That’s no crime for an elite defender and all-around glue guy of his caliber, but that — along with slightly lower scoring output — reflects a guy who’s not quite ready to be a consistent third option.
All season long, there have been ever-so-slight hints, not of resignation, but of honest acceptance that his offense will ebb and flow based on the given night. The only constants in Phoenix are Devin Booker and Chris Paul.
On Nov. 19 against the Dallas Mavericks, for example, Bridges started the game a perfect 7-for-7 in the first half. He didn’t take a single shot in the second half, and while Booker joked that he’d rather Bridges go 7-for-8 and chuck one up from half-court next time, his teammate had a more straightforward explanation.
“Hey man, ball’s not in my hands,” Bridges joked. “Like I told Book, I’m like, ‘The reason why I go 7-for-7 is ’cause you and CP: 20 shots and 14 shots.’ So them boys be getting ’em up. They got the ball the whole time, so I told them, ‘Look, when I was going, y’all was giving me the ball! When I was struggling a little bit, then they started shooting it.’ So that’s the reason why I only took seven shots.”
Bridges said all that in jest, but there was stark truth behind it. As the “Feed DA” crowd still struggles to understand, the Suns’ offense readjusts when defenses adjust to what’s working against them. From Bridges’ perspective, it’s not about how “aggressive” he’s being, but rather, what openings are there for the taking.
“I feel like I’m always pretty aggressive, but I’m just finding more opportunities to score,” he said after a 23-point outing against the Indiana Pacers in late January.
In late December, he discussed the importance of having his teammates’ encouragement, while noting how hard it can be to get in a groove with a varying number of touches.
“It’s just sometimes tough being in the position where we’re at, where you don’t really have it that much, not always being in a rhythm,” he said. “A lot of people say, ‘Just be aggressive, be easy,’ but when you don’t have it that much, it’s kind of tough. Like with C and Book, they got it every single time. Even if you don’t shoot it, you pound it about 10 times, at least you get a rhythm just naturally.”
The Suns still believed there was another tier of aggressiveness to unlock in his game. In mid-November, Williams and assistant coach Kevin Young emphasized just letting it fly with Bridges and Cam Johnson when they turned down shots.
In mid-December, after an aggressive third quarter from Bridges served as the only silver lining in an ugly, shorthanded Suns loss, Williams hoped that assertiveness would be something he could apply moving forward.
“I think he’s capable,” Williams said. “He’s worked on it, and there’s opportunities for him when everybody’s back to be that aggressive. I don’t want him to be aggressive now or in games like tonight, and then when we start to get guys back he defers. He’s good enough to score off the bounce, in transition, whatever the case may be.”
Fast-forward seven weeks, and the response has slightly changed. On Tuesday, Williams answered a question about whether Bridges’ recent scoring surge was sustainable. Nobody expected him to say that 20+ points should be the new standard, but his answer reflected more realistic expectations.
“Well, it’s tough to say,” he said. “A lot of his scoring is dictated by the defense. When teams are trapping our guards, then it frees him and Cam and Jae on the backside, and they get more attempts.”
If Bridges’ scoring is more dictated by what the defense is doing rather than his own offensive production, that probably doesn’t fit in with the typical definition of “third option.”
The question of Mikal Bridges’ offensive value is more nuanced, however.
For starters, while Deandre Ayton is the team’s second-leading scorer, he doesn’t create much of his own offense. None of this is a slight on Ayton; it’s a simple acknowledgement that guards and wings who can create off the dribble and on the perimeter will always rule the conversation in terms of being a true “third option” in the modern NBA.
Secondly, and more importantly, to paint the Suns in such black-and-white hues would ignore what makes this team such a vibrant joy to behold: They can beat you in a variety of ways.
“I think what helps us is we just have a complete team,” Chris Paul said. “You can’t key in on one or two guys. I mean, if people try to do that with me and Book, ‘Kal can get hot, Jae, Cam, you know what I mean? And that’s what makes us good, is that on any given night, anybody can get going.”
After dropping 26 on the San Antonio Spurs and then 27 on the Nets, Bridges repeated — verbatim — the same refrain when asked about his scoring output: “It’s my teammates finding me.”
“That’s what it really is, they find me, man,” he insisted. “I’m just out there running around, coach drawing up a couple plays, but other than that, man, just playing hard. My teammates find me all the time, and that’s why I appreciate them.”
Don’t let the Warden’s humility fool you, though. While he’s been an effective cutter for years now, his greatest offensive growth over the last few years stems from his ability to put the ball on the floor and either get to the rim or pull up from the midrange.
With defenses focused on stopping the Suns’ rim-rolling bigs from diving to the basket unimpeded, all while still corralling Booker and Paul off the dribble, reliable shooters like Bridges and Cam Johnson are often waiting on what Williams calls “the second side.” The Suns’ 0.5 offense depends on “paint to great” looks, which means collapsing the defense and finding open shooters.
In those instances where defenses provide enough help to contain Phoenix’s initial action in the pick-and-roll, Bridges is usually salivating in the corner at the opportunity to attack hasty closeouts.
“That’s how we want him to play,” Williams explained. “He’s playing in 0.5, he’s one of our better 0.5 players anyway. You could say he was aggressive, or you can say he was just making the right plays. Teams run him off the line because he can shoot it, and so when we move the ball around for two or three passes and then it finds Mikal, he’s playing against a defense that’s not set, and then that’s when he’s able to take advantage of his midrange game.”
Last year, Bridges only took 17 percent of his shots from the “short midrange” of 4-14 feet from the basket, per Cleaning The Glass, which excludes garbage time. This year, he’s taking 27 percent of his shots from that area of the floor, and he’s making 51 percent of those looks. A good number of those come on pull-ups where the defense is willing to concede the lesser of multiple evils.
Bridges can be a backbreaker in transition too, which is aided by Phoenix ranking sixth in the league in steals. He’s shooting 64 percent and posting 1.40 points per possession on fast breaks, which is the top mark in the league among the 79 players who have logged at least 100 possessions in transition.
He’s also a master of misdirection with those fake handoff from the elbows:
He can certainly still knock down 3s when defenders make the mistake of ignoring him or “hiding” one of their stars on him:
And he will happily cut you to death if you forget about him:
Combine all that with his 82 percent shooting at the rim and you’ve got a guy who quietly produces by simply reading and reacting to what he’s being given.
“I think that’s our team,” Bridges said. “We’re pretty loaded from top to bottom and we just stay ready, just stay aggressive. Knowing what Book and CP does, it’s just playing off those guys and always just being ready.”
The Suns have put Bridges in more pick-and-rolls this season too, both as a ball-handler and as a roller. While the results with the ball in his hands haven’t been as proficient as last year, both are extra wrinkles to keep an eye on approaching the playoffs, when defenses will do everything in their power to limit Phoenix’s MVP backcourt and force someone like Bridges to beat them.
“I think for us, it’s an environment that we can live in from time to time when they try to put defenders on him that, at times, aren’t the best defenders because they’re typically on Chris and Book,” Williams said. “So if they have another defender on Mikal that we can put in pick-and-rolls, it can help our team.”
Mikal Bridges probably won’t be the Phoenix Suns’ true third option this year, and that’s okay. This team specializes in finding different ways to win, from its star backcourt to lockdown defense to hot shooting nights to Cam Johnson’s surge as a reliable source of offense.
As long as Bridges stays ready to twist the knife when defenses lock in on Booker and Paul, he’ll prove himself when he starts punishing playoff opponents who make the mistake of not giving this defensive stalwart enough attention on the other end.
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