Mikal Bridges NOT A Fan Of Playing Low Minutes
While many players in the National Basketball Association would love to play low minutes and not risk getting injured on a back-to-back, Mikal Bridges is just not one of those players. In fact, the NBA’s Iron Man is very against it.
In Brooklyn’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, Bridges only played 12 minutes. To say the least, he was not happy as he was hoping to get more playing time – even though he played 40 minutes against the Detroit Pistons.
“Didn’t like the choice and whatever that was,” Bridges said when asked about the low minutes against Milwaukee. “But it’s whatever. Definitely was not a fan.”
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn explained his reasoning behind the low minutes, saying he did not want his big players like Bridges, Cam Johnson, and Royce O’Neale playing high minutes again.
“My thought was getting a feel and pulse of the game. Mikal played 40 minutes last night and so the thought was it wouldn’t be wise for me to continue and go down this path and have him play 40 minutes again,” Vaughn said. “I ran Cam (Johnson), Royce (O’Neale), and Mikal pretty long in the first quarter. Just envisioned at the end of the night that I didn’t want them touching 40 minutes again. That’s really what it boiled down to.”
The 12 minutes he played on Wednesday was the lowest minutes played in a game all season. In fact, the last time he played less than 20 minutes was Brooklyn’s first preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers. He only played 15 minutes.