Knicks’ Mikal Bridges admits to doing ‘bad job defensively’ in Game 3 loss to Spurs

Is Mikal Bridges starting to see flashbacks of five years ago? Perhaps. The New York Knicks dropped Game 3 of the 2026 NBA Finals to the San Antonio Spurs, 115-111, cutting their lead in the series, 2-1. Bridges, who knows what he must do better to avoid experiencing the same fate he did back in the 2021 NBA Finals, was rather poor on Monday night, scoring just two points on 1-5 shooting as a follow-up to his excellent Game 2.

Bridges didn’t seem to stand a chance in Game 3. He was in foul trouble early in the first quarter, and it’s not like the officials called phantom fouls on the Knicks forward.

At the very least, Bridges owned up to his shortcomings in Game 3, even calling his performance on the defensive end “bad” after seeing his impact get muted in a crucial Finals game.

“I think I did a bad job defensively. Obviously I picked up two fouls in the first quarter but me, personally, I got to be better defensively,” Bridges said, via SNY. “They scored a good amount of times when I was in in the beginning. And throughout the game, I think, really, for me, it starts with defense and feeding off that.”

"I think I did a bad job defensively"

Mikal Bridges on his performance tonight pic.twitter.com/wCf1rhUWsM

— SNY Knicks (@sny_knicks) June 9, 2026

Bridges couldn’t get into a rhythm all night long, and it showed. Some of the fouls he picked up were rather silly, and the Knicks needed him to cut down on some of those miscues since they needed the connective tissue he has on both ends of the floor.

At the very least, these mistakes are very much correctable for the Knicks forward. He’ll be heavily incentivized to do well in Game 4, as he knows that letting go of the gas pedal is death in the NBA Finals.

Avoiding foul trouble is going to be imperative as he seeks to bounce back from a nightmare performance on Monday night.

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