Mikal Bridges‘ first season with the New York Knicks hasn’t gone as planned so far, and he’s received a lot of criticism as a result. After the Knicks’ 99-98 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Friday, Josh Hart was asked if Bridges has had a hard time dealing with high expectations, and he came to his teammate’s defense.
“I know him, he doesn’t give a damn,” Hart said. “I don’t worry about him … The media and people are killing him. He’s in a new situation … what, 18 games? In a different role than he’s played the last four years. So, it’s our job to keep him going.
“All the other bullshit about what we gave up, this, that and the other thing, it doesn’t mean anything,” Hart said. “If we win, if we make a championship, nobody gives a damn how many picks we gave up. We gave up 15, it doesn’t matter.
“At the end of the day, we’re trying to win a championship,” Hart continued. “He’s going to be a key piece of that, and we’ve got to continue to develop him. If you go out there and nitpick everything he does, that’s just going to hurt him. We’re all going to talk about it, we’ve got to get him going and that’s when we’re going to get the best version of Kal.
“It’s 18 games. I just think he’s a tremendous player, he’s been to the Finals, he knows how to win,” Hart added. “So we can take it easy on all the criticism and nitpicking about a guy who’s won every time he’s stepped on the floor in every situation. A lot of people can’t do what he does.”