Three months after the New York Knicks climbed to the top of the basketball world, Mikal Bridges is still unpacking what made their title run so difficult to stop.
The biggest answer, according to Bridges, was belief built through repetition. The Knicks kept running into bad spots in the playoffs and kept finding a way out, and that experience carried real weight when the pressure got heavier.
As Bridges put it in a conversation with Men’s Health: “The Cavs series, that Game 1, being down 22 in the 4th. Last year in the playoffs, being down a lot,” said Bridges in a chat with Men’s Health.
“We had opportunities where we had been in the same situations and succeeded. It’s having that faith of being here before.
Obviously, it’s different being in the Finals than any other playoff series, but it’s still just another game. It’s just having that belief and taking it one possession at a time; we’ve been here before, we’ve done it before.
Ain’t gonna get it back in one possession, still a lot of time left. A lot of us have been in the league for a long time, and we know in this day and age, with the fast pace and a lot of threes, that even down 27 points at halftime, you still have a lot of time.
And being at home, having the crowd behind your back, it’s gonna put pressure on them.”
That mindset showed up all postseason long. New York finished the 2025-26 regular season at 53-29, and plenty of outside voices had the Knicks a step behind the Cavaliers, Celtics, and Pistons in the East.
None of that mattered once the games started. The Knicks rolled through the playoffs at 16-3, and one of the defining moments came right away when they erased a 22-point hole against the Cavaliers in Game 1.
The wildest comeback came in the Finals. In Game 4, the Knicks were buried by as many as 29 points before somehow flipping the night into a 107-106 win on OG Anunoby’s buzzer-beater. Bridges said that kind of rally never felt impossible inside the locker room.
“Just taking it one possession at a time,” Bridges said. “It’s just understanding like, ‘Okay, if we could be down 20 with 10 minutes left and have a chance, being down 27 with 24 minutes, we definitely have a chance.’ Mentally, it’s just being that boxer and knowing, like, if I were a guy who’s been in a lot of fights, I know what it feels like at that 12-round mark.”
Bridges also pointed to the Knicks’ ability to adjust on the fly, especially once halftime gave them a chance to regroup. With Jalen Brunson, depth, and coaching all in the mix, New York had more than one way to stay alive when the game started slipping.
“Halftime is a good thing because you’re in the moment and the game’s going by fast. It can be some miscues offensively or maybe on defense they’ve done something different because it’s Game 3 at this point, so maybe they changed something up,” Bridges added.
“Whatever game plan we had, now we have to switch it up a little bit. Also, just having that time to relax and catch your breath to lock in and take it to another level… this is your time to take a breather and understand what you need to do better, and just leave it out.
It’s the Finals, people don’t get here more than once.”
The run was improbable, but the title was earned. New York had to solve tough opponents at every turn, and the championship came from a group effort that stayed locked in when the margin for error disappeared. Now, with mostly the same roster back, the Knicks are set to run it again, armed with the kind of championship experience that only comes from surviving nights like those.
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