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Mikal Bridges logged an impressive 41 minutes during Wednesday night's game in Portland, and he certainly made those minutes count. In fact, he made a crucial play during the final seconds of the game that he wouldn't trade for anything.

MIKAL BRIDGES FROM THE TOP OF THE KEY. BULLSEYE

CLUTCH TRIPLE TO WIN IT FOR NEW YORK!!#TissotBuzzerBeater #YourTimeDefinesYourGreatness pic.twitter.com/KkiwXSrx76

— NBA (@NBA) March 13, 2025

Still, 41 minutes is a lot, and it's not just this game. No player has played more total minutes this season than Bridges' 2,460 (and counting). Second on that list? Josh Hart. The Knicks preferred starting five — Jalen Brunson, Bridges, Hart, OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns — has played more minutes than any five-man unit in the league by 334 minutes, the equivalent of almost seven more games.

That led Bridges to approach Thibodeau about lightening the load on the starters a little,

reported Stephan Bondy at the New York Post

"Sometimes it's not fun on the body," Bridges said. "You'll want that as a coach but also talked 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 (minutes), 47.

"We've got a lot of good guys on this team that can take away minutes. Which helps the defense, helps the offense, helps tired bodies being out there and giving up all these points. It helps just keeping fresh bodies out there."

Except, Thibodeau said Wednesday that conversation never happened and then went on to defend his minutes distribution.

Again from Bondy

"We never had a conversation about it...

"The facts are the facts: Your wings play more. So they're matched up with primary scorers," Thibodeau said. "So the way it works is if Jayson Tatum is in the game and Jaylen Brown is in the game, OG will be in the game and Mikal will be in the game. Try to keep the matchups. When you look at the league, all those guys are playing 35, 36 minutes — whether it's [Kevin] Durant, Tatum or a Brown. A wing is going to play more. They're primary wing defenders. That's the way the league works."

As it has been with Thibodeau teams in the past, the concern is that he wears players and teams down before the postseason. The Knicks are pretty locked into the No. 3 seed in the East, but right now that sets up a first-round matchup with a Detroit team that will not be a pushover and could be trouble for a worn-down Knicks team (and that doesn't even touch on seeing Boston in the second round). The hope would be that Thibodeau will lighten minutes near the end of the season to have legs fresh for the postseason. It's something to monitor in the coming weeks.