Phoenix Suns: Top 5 takeaways from Mikal Bridges’ Twitch stream

NBA2K has served as a bit of a replacement for real sports during this hiatus and the Phoenix Suns have capitalized on it. This time around, they gave Mikal Bridges the controls.

The Phoenix Suns continued either NBA2K playing out of the regular season on Friday and thankfully handed the controller to another player. This time, Mikal Bridges took the sticks against the Philadelphia 76ers, who were manned by fellow defensive specialist, Matisse Thybulle.

Previously, Ty Jerome got the win when he played as himself for the Suns, but Frank Kaminsky took the loss, (albeit while being super entertaining) bringing the Suns players’ 2K record to 1-1.

Mikal Bridges made it a point to not only get the win against Thybulle but make sure his character got his. Virtual Bridges finished with a very real-life Bridges stat line of 15 points, four rebounds, two assists, and two steals.

Here are the top 5 takeaways from Mikal’s time on Twitch:

Making sure his character played. A lot.

After realizing Dario Saric got the start over Bridges, Mikal immediately subbed himself into the game, saying, “Sorry, Dario,” as he was making move.

Not only that, in a show of immense confidence, he then went into the matchup settings and made sure his Mini-me was guarding Ben Simmons, one of the best isolation players in all NBA 2K this year. Strong move.

Giving virtual Ty Jerome a hard time

Frank Kaminsky was big on self-deprecation when he played with himself, but Mikal Bridges playfully ragged on the animated version of teammates. After getting beat to the rim multiple times in a row by the aforementioned stellar iso player, Ben Simmons, Bridges kept yelling, “Come on, Ty! Move your feet! Come on, Ty! Move your feet!” while laughing.

For what it’s worth, Jerome did not come back into the game, instead, it was Elie Okobo. Now he knows how Monty Williams has felt all season long.

Calling out Booker for good defense (sarcastically?)

It’s no secret one of the knocks on Devin Booker is his sometimes less-than-superb defense. Bridges seemed to know that as well because after a steal and a block by virtual Booker, Bridges yelled out, “Oh yeah! Two-way player, Book! Two-way player!” followed by a big laugh.

It made me think, wait, was he being sarcastic? Hah. I don’t know. He was probably just giving his boy props.

Referring to himself in the third person by nickname

Anytime video game Mikal Bridges did anything or was about to do something, his real-life counterpart would scream something like, “Gimme 3, Kal! Get it, Kal! Talk to me, Kal!”

It took me a time or two to realize he was referring to himself by his nickname, Kal. I felt kind of dumb for not recognizing it immediately and then laughed at myself because I remember doing the same thing in the past when I made a create-a-player on video games.

Insert facepalm emjoi here.

Postgame smack talk

Bridges didn’t let the fun end at the final buzzer. Mikal took to Twitter afterward to let Thybulle know what’s up, specifically calling out how bad he played with himself.

Wait, that didn’t sound right–how Thybulle played with the NBA2K version of himself–better.

That is a pretty terrible stat line. Get em, Kal!

Honorable mention moment goes out to Thybulle who, after throwing a pass downcourt and it going out of bounds, exclaimed, “We are NBA players! We can make an outlet pass!”

It made me laugh.

I’m not so much into the streams where random gamers are in control, but these matchups with actual players are great. More of these, please.