'It's who he is': How Mikal Bridges' reappearing act has the Knicks surging toward the NBA Finals

CLEVELAND — Mikal Bridges nodded. He’d just watched longtime teammate and friend Josh Hart break out of a shooting slump in a major way , knocking down five 3-pointers to fuel the New York Knicks’ sprint to a 2-0 lead in the 2026 Eastern Conference finals. And in his postgame press conference, Bridges fielded a question about what he’d seen in Hart’s ability to persist through the frustration of failing against a scheme designed to exploit his weakness until he found a way to succeed.

“Yeah, just staying mentally tough, you know? ” Bridges said. “That's the biggest thing.

And just keep trusting his game, trusting his work. We're super confident in him, and we're gonna keep finding him, and we know he’s gonna make some shots. “But just for him, personally?

Just mentally tough, you know. Staying with it. ” You wonder if, as Bridges answered, he found his mind drifting back to last month, when he himself seemed to be struggling with a crisis of confidence — one that threatened to dash the Knicks’ championship hopes against the rocks of cold, hard reality before they’d even really had a chance to set sail.