Miles Bridges helps key Charlotte Hornets' much-needed win over Cleveland
Miles Bridges peered into the Spectrum Center stands after the ball swished through the net, smiling as he made his way back down the court.
Bridges had just nailed a key 3-pointer, converting a feed from Terry Rozier to put the Charlotte Hornets ahead by 10 points with just over 90 seconds remaining. He was ready to cash in his opportunity to provide some rare breathing room for once.
“T-Ro did a good job of finding me," Bridges said following their much-needed 108-102 win over Cleveland on Friday night. "Everyone thought that T-Ro was going to shoot one of those shots again. He’s been hitting those clutch shots for us all year. But he did a good job of finding me in the corner so I could knock it down.
"My 3-point shooting, I worked on all offseason -- catch-and-shoot, off the dribble. And I feel like it’s starting to show. The more confidence I play with, the more you’ll see of my work that I put in.”
Bridges' hard work is paying off and he's really excelled since being thrust into the starting lineup. He was one of three Hornets to put up 25 points -- joining Rozier and PJ Washington -- and helped uplift an offense that's had a difficult time cracking triple digits.
Defensively, he was just as intense. On one sequence late in the second quarter, Bridges contested a Darius Garland attempt at the rim and then six seconds later proceeded to challenge Larry Nance Jr.'s dunk attempt. He said it was all about sending a message.
"I feel like I just wanted to make a statement to show that we are not soft," Bridges said. "You see Larry Nance, you see him dunk on Kevin Durant and all these types of guys. I just wanted to challenge him and make sure they didn’t have any easy buckets.”
That kind of maturation is allowing Bridges to really flourish. He recorded his ninth double-double of the season, continuing an upward ascension made even more noticeable since he's moved into the starting lineup.
In the 10 games as a starter leading into Friday night's performance, he averaged 18.8 points, seven rebounds and 2.4 assists per game, connecting on 51.1 percent of his shots and 44.3 percent beyond the 3-point arc.
"He's big, he's powerful, he's athletic," coach James Borrego said. "Yeah, there is another level to Miles. I don’t think any of us saw the level he would get to this year. If you look at his body, his power, his size and his current skill set, he's got another level to him. And I think that's exciting to our group."
That leap has helped put the Hornets in position for a playoff push. And, yes, it’s something they discuss among themselves.
“We know how serious these last 13 games are,” Washington said. “So for us, we got to go in to every game with the same mentality we did tonight. We have to guard people and make shots. That’s how you win games in this league and that’s how we’ve won games all season. Just being aggressive on both ends and sticking to our game plan.”
For one night at least, the Hornets weren’t victimized by one of the scoring droughts that keep popping up and make the margin of error even smaller then it already is thanks to all the injuries. Call it their reality at the moment.
"It’s not just one thing as I go back and watch," Borrego said. "I wish I could say it was one thing. It’s not simply that we are missing shots. The shots that we do have that are good shots, we have to knock down. And some quarters we are going on droughts. We are getting good shots. They are just not falling for us.
"Second thing is when teams pick up their pressure on us, how do we respond? You saw that in the Knick game. You saw that (Thursday) night against Chicago. We have a group of young men that have not been comfortable in these areas. We are asking guys to play in roles that have not been in their comfort (zone). They have not experienced this before. They are going through it for the first time and sometime you’ve got to go through the fire to figure it out. We’re in that place. We’re asking guys that were out of the rotation to go make plays for us, go make shots for us. And not just one quarter. I’m talking consistently for 48 minutes. And we’re using them to make plays over and over again. That's just where we're at."
Quotable: -- “It was great. It’s always great to have the home crowd with you behind your back and always cheering for you. Just to have that for us, especially in the fourth quarter, it was really good. Especially when we made stops and got out and hit big shots, just to have these fans here has been wonderful here in Charlotte." -- PJ Washington on the Spectrum Center crowd being audible on the TV broadcast
Noteworthy: Bismack Biyombo, who snatched a game-high 11 rebounds, posted a career-high nine offensive rebounds that aided in the Hornets outscoring Cleveland 18-9 in second-chance points.
Up next: vs. Boston, 1 p.m. Sunday
