ALWAYS CLUTCH AND ALWAYS SNARLING, JALEN BRUNSON IS A NEW YORK FANTASY
No one personifies a city aching for a closer more than the slaughterer, who already has pushed the Knicks to a 1-0 lead in a series when the Celtics threw up lazy 3-pointers while Brunson slayed them
The braids, the snarl, the nerve? If the purpose of a New York dream is to capture the look and texture of an athlete who can shake five boroughs and bridges and tunnels and skyscrapers and even the Met Gala, the man would be Jalen Brunson. Why was Spike Lee wearing an orange hat and an all-black suit on the red carpet Monday night when the superfan should have been in Boston?
The basketball media is focused on Nikola Jokic coaching the Nuggets on the court, with screams, while he scored 42 points and 22 rebounds to beat Oklahoma City. We’ve wondered about Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green wandering into Minneapolis, where they are hated. But all along this season, why aren’t we thundering into the fascination that Brunson, who was stolen by the Knicks from Dallas in a bigger theft scheme than Luka Doncic, has become the game’s most clutch performer in a city that cannot go to bed until it hugs a closer.
Only days after he buried Detroit with a three-pointer — described by Magic Johnson as “one of the most unbelievable crossover dribbles I’ve seen!’’ — Brunson was brilliant again as his team took a 1-0 lead over the Celtics in TD Garden. He scored 20 points in the second half as the Knicks overcame a 20-point comeback against a lazy team that tossed up 3-pointers, missing a postseason-record 45 of 60 attempts in a 108-105 loss. Choose anyone remaining in the postseason, including Jokic and a sore-wristed Steph Curry. Is there a player better suited to whipping the defending NBA champions, in a best-of-seven series, than Brunson? Already, he should feel the breeze arriving on I-95 from Madison Square Garden, the romantic ideal of the Knicks toppling the Celtics and reaching their first Finals in 26 years.
“We told each other to just keep believing: keep firing,” Brunson said. “And just keep fighting and sticking together and to keep chipping away. There wasn’t going to be a 20-point shot. We had to keep chipping away, possession by possession. And find a way to keep getting stops.”
Said the Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, who went 1 of 10 on threes: “We can’t just fire up threes to break up momentum. You gotta get to the free throw line, get to the paint, get to the basket. It felt like they were daring us to shoot. They wanted us to shoot those shots. And we didn’t make them.”
It hardly mattered that Jrue Holiday, a premier defender, was in Brunson’s chops. The data leads to a conclusion that no player has a tighter grasp on the final minutes. “He just lives for the moment,” teammate Mikal Bridges said. “He wants to be the guy. Especially on the road, to silence the crowd, leading us to victory. It’s just who he is.”
I used to tell people that Kyle Brandt, the reality TV star who became a morning star on the NFL Network, was the biggest celebrity from Stevenson High School, attended by my two daughters. Forget Brandt and the Ryan brothers, Rex and Rob. The all-timer is Brunson, who won two NCAA titles at Villanova and is an NBA championship away from standing near the top of Chicago-area basketball greats — Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose, Isiah Thomas, Anthony Davis. Imagine how far he has come in 10 years. That’s when Brunson scored 48 points with six 3-pointers when Stevenson faced Jayson Tatum’s Chaminade High team, which won 88-81. That game has been highlighted in this week’s coverage. Typical of his attitude, Brunson was reminded he scored 48.
“But they won,” he said.
As the Celtics slipped in the fourth quarter, Tatum missed all seven of his shots and scored two points. Brunson jumped him. “He’s at his best when his best is needed,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He has mastered the fundamentals. He’s had size on him. He’s had small, quick guys. He’s dealt with double teams. He knows how to create spaces. He’s not going to fight the double teams, he can make the right play and keep moving. He knows how to get open.”
Before the series, Brunson welcomed critics. “Now you have to lock in,” he said. “No one believes in us. Let's go do it. For me, I feel like that's easier than being like, ‘Oh, we're so good. Like, everyone thinks that we're good.’ I like when people doubt us. It makes the process of preparing easier.”
Listen to the hum. At 28, Brunson has joined one other player — Michael Jordan — in producing 40 or more points and five or more assists in a road closeout victory. ESPN’s Jay Williams knows history and said this about Brunson: “I think we are watching the greatest Knick ever to play in that Knick uniform.” Outside the Garden, by the subway entrance, Nike posted a billboard that boasted him “For Mayor.”
Ask the locals. Andrew Cuomo? Eric Adams? Or Brunson.
“Sure, he got my vote,” Bridges said.
What about the city? “Sure,” he said.
Aaron Judge rules the batter’s box this season. He hasn’t won a World Series yet.
New York belongs to Jalen Brunson. “Shaking. What a win,” Timothee Chalamet said on Instagram. If he’s shaking, why not 20 million more with three more victories.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.