Knicks’ Bridges plays 23 seconds, extends NBA’s longest active streak to 638 straight games
NEW YORK — Mikal Bridges had another short night to extend the NBA’s longest active streak of consecutive games played, logging 23 seconds in the New York Knicks’ loss to Charlotte on Sunday.
That made it 638 consecutive games for Bridges, who has never missed one in his pro career. He recently moved past Andre Miller for the eighth-longest streak in NBA history.
Bridges said he doesn’t go into a season feeling that he has to play 82 games, but just doesn’t like to miss any.
“I think I just try to pray for good health and do whatever it takes to be healthy and just try to be out there,” he said.
Bridges was the only Knicks starter to play with the team locked into the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference. Coach Mike Brown said he would only allow the guard to play long enough to extend the streak, and reserve Jordan Clarkson was already walking to the scorer’s table to replace him even before the opening jump ball.
The Knicks won the tip and had the first possession. As soon as they ran back on defense, Bridges committed a foul to stop play and he was removed.
Five NBA players had streaks of more than 700 games, led by A.C. Green’s 1,192.
“It’s crazy because load management is a real term,” Brown said before the game. “And that’s something that’s thought of by everybody, not just the medical performance group but by coaches, by individual players, by agents, by family members, and people get pushed to take time off for whatever reason. And so for a guy like that to be at the number he’s at in consecutive games played speaks volumes.”
The NBA Cup final that the Knicks won doesn’t count in the statistics, otherwise Bridges would have been credited with playing 83 games in an 82-game season for the second time in four years. He played 56 games with Phoenix in 2022-23 before he was dealt to Brooklyn in the trade for Kevin Durant, then appeared in all of the Nets’ final 27 games.
He extended the streak at the end of that season by playing four seconds in the regular-season finale, and played six seconds in the final game of the 2024-25 season.
There were 18 players who went into the final day of the regular season having played every game. Charlotte’s Sion James also appeared in his 82nd game Sunday at Madison Square Garden.