BOSTON — Mikal Bridges finds solace in front of a television screen: a game controller gripped by his gangly fingers, a headset sitting on his waves and his best friend in the NBA in his ear.
For months, Bridges and Knicks teammate Cam Payne had been playing the recently resurrected College Football 25. Lately, though, Bridges has been playing MLB The Show. He’s a big-time baseball fan. Bridges’ patented 3-point celebration — three fingers extended, a head bobble and his tongue out — rips off the San Diego Padres, who used to point at the dugout and do a head turn when they got an extra-base hit.
This is how Bridges escapes the wild world he was thrust into last summer.
“We’re probably going to play the game tonight,” Payne, who signed a one-year deal last summer, joining his old Phoenix Suns teammate and friend, told The Athletic. “He does the same for me. When I first came to the team, when I signed, I told him I need him to keep me grounded, with however the situation is going to go. He said, ‘I need the same thing.’”
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Knicks’ Mikal Bridges has mastered adversity: Video games, bullying and friendship