Knicks vs. Spurs NBA Finals: It all started with Jalen Brunson, and it all ends with him as well
SAN ANTONIO — As Jalen Brunson wended his way through the bowels of Frost Bank Center in the wee hours of Sunday morning, he did so laden with gold. Everywhere he went — from interview to interview, from embrace to embrace, from moment to celebratory moment — the New York Knicks captain toted the Larry O’Brien Championship trophy and the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy that he’d just won.Those suckers — especially the Larry O’B — are pretty damn big. They didn’t seem too heavy, though, in arms that have been carrying a hell of a lot more than that: the weight of expectations, the fate of a franchise, the hopes and dreams of millions upon millions of New Yorkers.When Brunson finally made his way into the visitors’ interview room, and set his newly won trophies down on the podium, he wondered aloud about setting something else down, too.“The question is,” Brunson asked the assembled media, “do I be myself? Or do I talk my s***?”When presented with the opportunity to do so, though — to describe how he was feeling, to discuss everything that led him to this point, all the slights and slings and arrows that fueled him and brought him to the top of the mountain — Brunson made the simple read, the easy play.“Words can't describe it,” Brunson said. “But I'll say: I put a lot of time and effort into trying to be the best player I can be to try and help a team win. Just really thankful to have the organization, the coaching staff, my teammates, to have my back every single day.”That Brunson even considered choosing violence, though, showed just how much this remarkable moment — the overwhelming emotion he’d felt on the court after the game, the thrill of reaching the pinnacle of his profession — had thawed his typically icy exterior. The king of the anodyne quote, forever preaching “0-0 mindset” and “one possession at a time” and all that, had finally reached the point where there were no more games to prepare for, no more possessions to lock in for — nothing to do but bask in the glow of the achievement he’d worked for his entire life.For the first time in 53 years, the New York Knicks are the champions of the NBA, and Jalen Brunson is the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals, an honor he’d earned unanimously after authoring a Game 5 for the ages: 45 points on 14-for-27 shooting from the field, 4-for-7 from 3-point range, 13-for-15 from the free-throw line in 41 peerless minutes.Yet again, the Knicks had trailed the San Antonio Spurs by double digits in these 2026 NBA Finals. And yet again, Brunson and his teammates just steadily walked the Spurs down, chipping away at the deficit until — yet again — Victor Wembanyama and Co. found themselves wondering what the hell had just hit them.What hit them was No. 11, who scored 29 of his 45 after halftime, including 16 in the fourth quarter, continuously applying pressure to the younger, less seasoned Spurs until, eventually, they broke. What hit them was weaponized stubbornness, internalized rage at being told all the things you can’t do — a chip on the shoulder sharpened into a blade dangerous enough to slice through any defense, even one led by a 7-foot-infinity unanimous Defensive Player of the Year.What hit them was the entirety of what Brunson had to give. And in Game 5, with a championship on the line, what he had to give was …“Everything,” he said with a laugh. “I was just trying to go out there and just will us to win. Wasn't focused on anything else besides trying to win the game. Getting stops. Getting out and running. Just figuring out how to cut that lead, or to gain it when we got it. Really exciting moment, knowing we won't give up.”That relentlessness, that indefatigability became the defining quality of these Knicks. They came back from a pair of 20-pointdeficits on the road against the favored Boston Celtics last spring. They came back from down 2-1 in the first round to the Atlanta Hawks, punctuating that surge with a historic 51-point beatdown. They came back from down 22 in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They came back from double-digit deficits four times in these Finals — most notably in Game 4, when they erased a 29-point Spurs lead in what will go down as the greatest comeback in NBA history. And on Saturday, they did it again.“Tonight, we played like we wanted to go home champions,” Brunson said, before clarifying: “To finish the game. Not to start the game.”The Knicks got off to another slow offensive start in Game 5, struggling to create space and good looks against a snarling Spurs defense that smothered every action, every pass, every rim attack, every catch-and-shoot chance. The Knicks had more turnovers (five) than made shots (four) in the first quarter, shooting a dismal 18.2% from the field in the opening frame. Things improved in the second, but only marginally; New York went into halftime down only five, but that owed as much to San Antonio’s own offensive struggles as anything that any Knick besides Brunson (who had 16 of the Knicks’ 37 first-half points) was doing. “Yeah, we owe him,” said Knicks guard Landry Shamet, who scored five points on 2-for-7 shooting. “We weren't great offensively tonight. But he is generationally great offensively.”He proved that in the second half, when it seemed like everything that had made the Knicks so incredible over these past two months was being stripped away. Karl-Anthony Towns — a revelation earlier in the postseason as a high-post playmaking hub, and a dominant stretch-5 who’d outplayed Wembanyama in the early stages of these Finals — was racked with foul trouble, contributing just two points on 1-for-7 shooting (albeit with 10 rebounds and three steals) before fouling out in just 23 minutes. OG Anunoby — so brilliant and efficient all series long, and the hero of that Game 4 stunner — was similarly limited offensively, chipping in just 11 points on 11 shots. The Knicks’ entire bench was scoreless until the final minute of the third quarter.Nothing else was working. So Mike Brown had to rely on his fastball. Good ol’ No. 11.“I've said it, and I hope you guys will listen to me, but he's a top-three MVP candidate,” Brown said. “You know, everybody kind of mentions his name in passing. They don't do it seriously enough. You know, people say he's too small. People say he's a 1B or a 2B or whatever. He is a freaking 1A. He is an MVP candidate. [...] You know, he understands what winning is about.”Brown then spoke about the decision that helped shape this Knicks roster: Brunson deciding to sign a four-year, $156.5 million contract extension in the summer of 2024, rather than waiting a year, when he would have been eligible for a five-year pact that could have topped out at an estimated $269 million. That decision — that $113 million haircut — created the financial conditions that enabled the Knicks to pony up to retain Anunoby when he hit free agency, to bring in and later extend another college buddy in Mikal Bridges, and to fit in the supermax salary of All-NBA stretch-big Towns — all without going over the second apron.“You know, he comes and he probably takes a pay cut that I wouldn't have taken,” Brown said. “Every time they would've thrown that number in front of me, I would have said no — and I feel like I'm a good guy! He set the bar before he even stepped on the floor.”It was a choice that came with some risk; there’s no guarantee that a player will make up the nine figures of guaranteed salary he’s forsaking for flexibility and roster functionality. But Brunson said Saturday that he had this night in mind when he put pen to paper — that he believed this outcome was “very possible.”“With a lot of hard work and effort, I knew it was achievable,” he said. “But that was only a small portion of it. I think everyone bonding, coming together, having the mindset of just believing in each other, never giving up, no matter what the situation was, made this all possible. Yes, it may look like [the contract] had something to do with it, but it's a credit to my teammates.”Brunson just kept carrying it all until his teammates could catch up. Josh Hart, who spent so much of the series — and this postseason, really — fighting through the mental challenge of being intentionally left alone by centers cross-matching onto him so that they could ignore him to muck up driving lanes elsewhere, stepped into a pull-up 3 that kept the deficit within single digits early in the fourth. After missing 14 of his previous 15 shots stretching back to Game 3, Shamet finally hit a pair of huge shots — a pull-up 3 off a dribble handoff with Bridges to cut the deficit to six with just under nine and a half minutes to go, and a hard drive for a layup a minute later. Anunoby found a pocket of space in transition, cutting baseline for a dunk that was ruled a goaltend, putting the Knicks up three with 2:07 to go.But through it all, it was Brunson who gave the Knicks what they needed when they needed it. Pump-faking defender after defender into the air, drawing contact, and getting himself to the line — the unglamorous, engine-room work that chips away at a big lead. Pushing the pace off Spurs misses whenever possible, seeking the opportunity to attack a lane not filled by Wembanyama. Pulling up from 3 in Wembanyama’s face, drilling it, landing on Wembanyama’s foot, turning his ankle … and just getting back up, getting back in the game, and keeping it pushing.“I'm hurting right now,” Brunson admitted after the game. “I'm not going to lie to you. I'm hurting right now. But like I said before, the opportunity presented itself. Whatever you've got to do.”“That's who Cap is — Cap always find a way to get back on the court and produce,” Towns said. “That's a testament to who he is, and just his story — never giving up, always have been the underdog, always been looked down upon. It always takes one person to believe in you. This organization believed in him, and we believed in him. We were going to do whatever it takes to get him to the next level.”A personal 10-0 Brunson run tied the game at 83 with 4:48 to go. When a Devin Vassell pull-up put San Antonio back on top, Brunson got himself back to the line to give the Knicks the lead. When ace rookie Dylan Harper hit a short jumper to tie it at 88, Brunson pushed the ball right back down the floor, drove right around Stephon Castle — a monstrous defender who’d been draped all over Brunson all series long — and got into the paint for a patented floater to regain the advantage.“I don't think it took a toll on me mentally,” Brunson said of the Spurs’ defense, which came in waves, hectoring him the full length and width of the court, minute after minute, game after game. “Maybe a little bit physically, obviously, just because of the game and what they are trying to do. Mentally, I feel fresh. I feel like that's where I thrive.”The numbers bear it out. Through the first two games of the Finals, Brunson averaged 25 points on 33.9% shooting, including 23.5% from 3-point range — woeful efficiency, even if he was nails in the clutch when it counted. Over the final three games, though, after he’d felt the Spurs out and decided on a plan of counter-attack: 37.7 points per game, 48.1% shooting, 52.6% from 3-point range and 85.3% from the free-throw line.“That was unreal — just, literally, unreal,” said Knicks center Mitchell Robinson. “I'm speechless. I seen it a couple times here and there, but to do it in a closeout game against a good team like that … it's different. His mindset, his work ethic, his energy that he just brings — you know, he just brings joy, and you know, we need that.”Time after time, possession after possession, that was the difference: For all the incredible young talent the Spurs have, all the ascendant athletic marvels who might soon run this league, the Knicks had Jalen Brunson. And that meant they had enough.“He got going, then he got going later on,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “He's a heck of a player. He deserves everything he's got.”“That was a good team,” Spurs forward Julian Champagnie said. “I mean, we lost. Super tough. That’s a credit to them. They’ve got a great superstar in Jalen Brunson that gets the job done.”Superstar. Funny word, that.It’s not a title many would have ascribed to Brunson when he fell to the second round in the 2018 NBA Draft, even after all the collegiate accolades he’d accrued at Villanova. It’s not one many would have believed he’d grow into during his first few years in Dallas. Frankly, it’s one many wondered if Brunson would be able to live up to when Knicks president Leon Rose first signed him — his former client, later his son Sam’s client, and the son of his first client, former Knicks player and current Knicks assistant coach Rick Brunson — in unrestricted free agency in 2022.A nine-figure deal carries with it a certain amount of pressure. A nine-figure deal to be the starting point guard of the New York Knicks, one expected to restore the franchise to a glory it had rarely seen in the previous half-century? That’s a very, very different proposition.“People don't understand — we don't really talk about it — but the weight of that jersey, the expectations, the pressure of that jersey,” Hart said. “And like I say: Today, right now, it's the lightest it's ever felt.”Brunson, though, insists that it never feels that heavy to him. Because, as he puts it, he grew up with an up-close-and-personal look at what real stress looks like.“My dad [Knicks assistant coach Rick Brunson] being on eight or nine unguaranteed contracts throughout his career and not knowing when you're going to get cut, when a team is going to move on from you, while your family is on the East Coast and you are wherever you are in the country? That's pressure,” Brunson said. “Working out three times a day in the summertime and watching him push himself just to get a training camp deal, that's pressure. I'm very fortunate to be in the position I am, and I definitely think I worked pretty hard. So when the opportunity presented itself like it did today, I just trust my work. And if we win, we win. If we don't, we learn. We move forward.“But I'm just never afraid to fail.”That’s why he succeeds, again and again — and why, on Saturday, he did so to a degree that etched his name into the history books.Brunson is the first Knick ever to score 40 points in an NBA Finals game. He’s one of just 11 players in NBA history with a 45-point game in the Finals, joining a who’s who of the greatest of all time: Jerry West, Michael Jordan, Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Rick Barry, Wilt Chamberlain, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo.He’s one of just six players ever to hang 45 in the Finals on the road. One of just four ever to do it in acloseoutgame.On the road and in a closeout? It’s just Michael Jordan, Game 6 in Utah, 1998, and Jalen Brunson, Game 5, in San Antonio, on Saturday.It was arguably the greatest individual performance in Knicks history — one that, in the mind of his coach, cemented Brunson’s place in the upper echelon of franchise legends.“I love Pat[rick Ewing],” Brown said. “Pat's up there. I hope Pat doesn't kill me. He's bigger than me. We're both old and slow but because he's got a longer reach, he might be able to kill me. But Brunson … he is him, man. When it comes to New York basketball, he is freaking him.”After Game 5, Ewing — who’s been a fixture at Madison Square Garden for years, who’d been traveling with the team during this playoff run, and whom Brown said had become a valuable sounding board for current Knicks players throughout the process of pursuing a title — didn’t seem too concerned about chasing Brown down to argue for his place in the pecking order. (Maybe that’s because Rick Brunson was busy doing it for him.)Ewing looked … ecstatic, actually.“I’m doing great,” Ewing told Yahoo Sports. “I’m feeling so blessed.”Like, decades after his Knicks teams fell short and he was eventually traded to the Seattle SuperSonics, a weight had at long last been lifted off those massive shoulders.“Oh, definitely,” he said, in between hugs with friends and Knicks staffers. “It took 53 years. … Yes, it feels great.”Ewing was hardly alone in that feeling in San Antonio on Saturday; there were thousands of Knicks fans feeling it, too.It was the first thing you noticed, as you walked around Frost Bank Center: all the jerseys. And shirseys. So many friggin’ Knicks shirts.It wasn’t the Brunsons or the Harts or the Anunobys or the Townses that stood out (although there certainly were plenty of those). No — it was the Ewings, the Oakleys, the Masons. The Sprewells, LJs, Kurt Thomases and Charlie Wards. The Melos, Amar’es and Lins. The Porzingii, Barretts and Quickleys. The Alec Burks and Kevin Knox (singular).It was how worn they looked. Not carefully distressed vintage; just, y’know, distressed. Naturally. By the ravages of time, and by rooting for the team they represented. Yards, miles even, of fabric-as-testimonial — threads as throughline, all telling the story of a lifelong love that was so often unrequited by a franchise that, for the better part of 30 years, could never seem to get out of its own way, but that continued to captivate generations of city kids and Tri-State suburban ex-pats all the same.That’s why they travel like this. OK, yes, it’s partly because it’s more cost-effective than actually getting into Madison Square Garden, which would require taking out a second mortgage on the house you can’t afford to buy anywhere within an hour of Midtown. But it’s also because some things you do for money — like, say, sell your ticket to some dude from Jersey who’s willing to crack open his 401(k) for it — and some you do for love, love, love.It’s that love that had Jose Alvarado sprinting toward the Knicks locker room, a Puerto Rican flag that Knicks PR had procured for him draped across his shoulders, screaming about how he was going to party. That had Fat Joe walking back to the locker room sweating, accepting congratulations, saying that he’d “played a hard one tonight.” That had Ben Stiller, who’s spent months documenting this incredible Knicks run, beaming as he walked toward the bus home, holding Mike Brown’s whiteboard as a souvenir from a night he’ll never forget.That had centers Robinson and Ariel Hukporti, already bottle in hand and goggles on minutes after getting off the court, leaping into the other with joy, body-bumping so hard that they knocked a nearby photographer’s phone out of his hand. That had a shirtless Jeremy Sochan leaping in to join them. That had Knicks staffers bumping Ja Rule’s “New York” in the visiting locker room, where the celebration had long since wrapped up by the time the media was allowed in, with spent magnums of Moet and Ace of Spades littering a soaked carpet as cigar smoke curled toward the fluorescent lights in the ceiling.It’s that love that led Brunson back to the franchise he’d grown up inside, and that led said franchise to move heaven and earth to surround with a team worthy of his talents.“I see a man that's grown up and took the challenge of being in the biggest market in the world, being with a team that hasn't made it to the NBA Finals in 27 years and hasn't won in [53] years, and knowing that he could do it,” Towns said, flanked by a nodding Anunoby. “Shoutout to everybody who told him he couldn't do it, because it gave him fuel for the fire. For him to welcome both of us here into this organization and trust that we were here for him, it means a lot. It means a lot to have a person like that who has been handed the keys to the city and was willing to have the door open for both of us to join.”It’s that love that was on display as Brunson accepted the honors he’d earned, his father watching him, his teammates serenading him, droves of Knicks fans chanting his name.“It’s everything we dreamed of,” Brunson told ESPN’s Ernie Johnson during the championship ceremony after the game. “It’s why I came to New York.”He came, he saw and he conquered. The Knicks’ path toward a championship started with Brunson, and it ended with Brunson hoisting the trophy as the best player on the best team in the world.After the game, Brunson was asked what that fact said to those who’ve wondered about whether or not he was a “1A” player.“I didn't respond to them then,” Brunson said. “And I'm damn sure not going to respond to them now.”It took him a while. But the king of New York finally talked his s***.
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