The Knicks' defense was likely all smiles after Mike Brown said he wouldn't always use Mikal Bridges as the point-of-attack defender this year, noting that Bridges is very good in a chaser role.
That should be music to the ears of the Knicks' faithful, as well, as Bridges struggled as an on-ball defender for much of last season, while being used almost exclusively in that role. Bridges is still a good defender, at times very good, but doesn't possess the physicality or screen navigation skills to give the league's elite ball-handlers a hard enough time.
In fact, Bridges ranked as the worst screen navigator in the league last season, according to BBall-Index's screen navigation metric.