BOSTON – Mikal Bridges' shooting woes were so difficult to watch in the scoreless first half that it probably looked to some Knicks fans as if he would be out Tuesday night.

Bridges even hit a technical free throw early in the third quarter, but eventually overcame a rocky start to finish with 16 points on 7-for-8 shooting after halftime in his team debut in an ugly 132-109 loss to the Celtics .

However, he never fully recovered on defense.

Bridges was also the Knicks' primary defender against Celtics All-Star Jayson Tatum, who sank 8 of 11 from 3-point range and scored 37 points to lead Boston's NBA record of 29 treys for the game.

“I definitely could have done better. I think my defensive performance wasn't particularly good for me personally or for our team,” said Bridges, who posted his team's worst performance of minus-33 in 35 minutes. “Personally, I think I just could have been better, especially (against) a guy that can do it and have that rhythm from the three and just get up a little bit more (on Tatum).

“He also had a nice move in front of me in terms of paint. It just has to be better. I mean, Game 1, you just have to learn from it and just get better.”

Bridges, acquired from the Nets in a blockbuster trade over the summer, missed his first five shot attempts of the season, including four from 3-point range, in the first 13 minutes of the game before being replaced by rookie Pacome Dadiet early on of the second quarter.

The 28-year-old Bridges – a career 37.5 percent shooter on 3-pointers – had spoken last week about tinkering with a problem with his shot after missing 17 of 19 long-range shots in four preseason appearances .

“Mikal doesn’t care about anything else, we don’t care about all the background noise about Mikal, his shot and all the other (stuff). We don’t care,” Josh Hart said of his former Villanova teammate. “He puts in a lot of work every day. He will be good.

“The talk about it is stupid and there is stupidity behind it because at the end of the day he was almost a 40 percent 3-point shooter. The talk about it is stupid and we won't really get into it.

Bridges finally made it to the court with a 3-pointer with 9:21 left in the third period.

Karl-Anthony Towns then found him on a cut to the basket for a layup, and he sank three straight baseline jumpers and missed just one of his last eight.

“Man, my teammates keep finding me and just making one (shot). I think that’s pretty much it,” Bridges said. “Just making one was like taking the lid off.”