These things take time.
That was the message from the Knicks and Mikal Bridges, nearly a full year after the trade that brought him across the Manhattan Bridge and is now paying dividends that were hard to fathom not long ago.
From disappointment to clutch playoff performer, Bridges’ path to Monday’s 121-113 victory over the Celtics — which included another impressive fourth quarter from the 28-year-old — was rocky and sometimes either head-scratchingly frustrating or just plain ugly.
And since we expected otherwise, maybe we underestimated how difficult was the transition from leading man in Brooklyn’s off-Broadway production to a supporting role in NYC’s biggest theater of Madison Square Garden.