Knicks’ Mikal Bridges wants starters playing fewer minutes

PORTLAND, Ore.— There is arguably no NBA player who wants to be on the floor more than Mikal Bridges, who has never sat out a game in his career. He was set to play in his 539th consecutive game on Wednesday night, while also leading the NBA in total minutes played this season — a feat he’s already achieved twice in his career.

So when he tells you — and Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau — that the minutes are wearing on him it might be worth listening.

The minutes debate has been something that has trailed Thibodeau throughout his coaching career and was thrust front and center again this week even with the Knicks recording a blowout win in Sacramento as former NBA player Channing Frye criticized Thibodeau’s reluctance to use his bench.

Bridges said that he’s spoken to Thibodeau about how it could benefit both starters and substitutes to slightly shift the minutes load.

“You know, I’m on that side because I’m a starter and I’ll play a lot of minutes,” Bridges said after the Knicks’ morning shootaround at the Moda Center. “Sometimes not fun on the body.

“But you want that as a coach. But also talk to him a little bit, knowing that we’ve got a good enough team where our bench guys can come in and we don’t need to play 48, 47 [minutes]. We’ve got a lot of good guys on this team that can take away the minutes, which helps the defense, helps the offense, helps tired bodies being out there and giving up all these points. It helps us keeping fresh bodies out there.”

And the response from his coach to those talks?

“He’s not arguing about it,” Bridges said. “Sometimes I think he just gets in his ways and he gets locked in and he just wants to keep the guy out there. Sometimes you have to tell him like, Landry [Shamet] for example or somebody, keep them out there, they’re playing well.”

Bridges is not only leading the NBA in total minutes played but is second in minutes per game, just behind teammate Josh Hart, 37.819 to 37.812. OG Anunoby is sixth while Jalen Brunson is 19th and Karl-Anthony Towns is 23rd — all five starters averaging at least 35 minutes per game.

The argument still has rung hollow because the Knicks have managed to keep their starting lineup together more than any other team — and part of that is because they have been healthy. There is no science that has linked minutes played to some of the freakish injuries — a sprained ankle that has sidelined Brunson now or the dislocated shoulder that ruined Julius Randle’s season last year, or Joel Embiid’s antics that sent Mitchell Robinson to ankle surgery last season.

Frye’s point was more about what the bench can contribute.

“I played for coaches where we have our game plan and it’s not working and the coach yells ‘just do it harder!’ . . .  We go ‘Coach, you’ve got to put somebody else in, something has to change,’ ” Frye said. “Switch it up . . .  Thibs plays six dudes, seven dudes. Over the course of the game you get a rhythm, like a metronome. For these dudes, they’re exhausted.”

 If Bridges, who has regularly handled the most minutes in the NBA, is feeling it then maybe there is something to it.

“I think it’s something you never really get used to,” Bridges said. “Your body is going to feel how it is every year. But I’ve been a part of it for a while, knowing how to take care of my body through those situations and just trying to do as much as I can.

“ ” . . . It’s usually a mental thing. Getting hit in the head, getting hit in the leg. You might get sore a little bit. But you push through it for a couple minutes and don’t think about it until the end of the game or something. I think it’s more mental than everything.”