Knicks Notes: Bridges, Towns, Hart, Shamet, Robinson

Traded from Brooklyn to New York in the summer, Curtsy forward Mikal Bridges has had to adjust to new roles on both sides of the ball this season, as Chris Herring writes for ESPN.com.

On offense, Bridges handles the ball significantly less than before networkswith a touchdown average of nearly 20% and a usage rate that is easily his lowest since his last full season in Phoenix. At the other end of the court, he often served as the guards’ point defender rather than being assigned to larger wings, meaning he spent more time chasing smaller players around screens.

“Teams wanted to try and attack him because it was a different place for him; especially early,” a Western Conference scout said to Herring. “When you got past him in the beginning you could force all sorts of aggressive rotations because the team was still getting used to it (Karl-Anthony) Cities on the edge. And the collective trust didn’t seem to be there.”

While Bridges’ transition is still a work in progress, his offensive numbers have rebounded after an up-and-down start. Since the start of December, he is averaging 20.0 points per game on .523/.385/.757 shooting. He faces his old team on Tuesday in the Knicks’ first visit to Brooklyn this season.

“It will just be nice to be back” Bridges said on Monday, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “To see my teammates and the coaching staff who were there for a few months before I was replaced. Look at the staff and everyone. Good energy.”

Here’s more on the Knicks:

• Towns, who missed two games because of a bone chip in his right thumb, was back in action Monday against Atlanta. Josh Hart was also active after initially being listed as questionable because of cervical compression, which he said had been bothering him for some time and which Bondy said had worsened on Friday. Towns’ injury appeared to impact his shooting – his 27.8% shooting percentage from the field (5 of 18 shots) was his worst of the season – but both players made it through the contest without any setbacks. It is likely that they will play against Brooklyn on Tuesday, tweets Bondy.
• Head coach Tom Thibodeau expanded its rotation from eight to nine players on Monday Landry Shamet SNY.tv’s Ian Begley writes that he deserves 10 minutes off the bench after two DNP CDs. Bridges was the biggest beneficiary of the move, logging just 27 minutes, well below his season average (a league-high 38.7 MPG). “It’s nice, man.” According to Bondy, Bridges said. “We have a lot of players, 1 to 15. So it’s good.”
• Mitchell Robinsonwho said just a few days ago that he was down to 268 pounds, said Monday that he now weighs 265 pounds, according to Bondy, who suggests the big man’s weight is due to his fitness and conditioning issues due to injuries is remarkable. According to Begley, he hasn’t heard anything that contradicts the “inner hope/belief” that Robinson could return to action in early to mid-February.