The New York Knicks spent decades searching for the player who could carry them back to the top of the NBA. On Saturday night, Jalen Brunson removed any remaining doubt that they had found him.
With Karl-Anthony Towns limited to two points and New York struggling offensively for much of the evening, the Knicks’ 6ft 2in floor general erupted for 45 points in a 94-90 victory over the Spurs that delivered the team’s first championship in 53 years and earned him Most Valuable Player honors.
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The performance lifted Brunson into rare company. He became only the third player 6ft 3in or shorter to lead a championship team in scoring and win NBA finals MVP, joining Isiah Thomas and Stephen Curry. For years, conventional wisdom held that smaller guards needed a larger superstar beside them for a team to win basketball’s biggest prize. Brunson spent this postseason dismantling that notion one game at a time, never more than in Saturday’s pièce de résistance.
“That was unreal, just literally unreal,” Knicks center Mitchell Robinson said afterward. “I’m speechless. I’ve 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.”
Brunson averaged 32.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists in five games against San Antonio, but his teammates seemed almost as impressed by the manner in which he delivered the championship as the numbers themselves.
“We owe him,” guard Landry Shamet said. “We weren’t great offensively tonight, but he is generationally great offensively.
“There’s really not a whole lot to say. We all saw it. He carried us in a lot of different ways. What he does, it’s not really a surprise to us anymore, being his teammate. But nights like tonight, you’ve got to look at it and really appreciate it.”
Knicks coach Mike Brown used the occasion to make a larger point about Brunson’s place among the league’s elite.
“I’ve said it, and I hope you guys will listen to me, but he’s a top-three MVP candidate,” Brown said. “Everybody kind of mentions his name in passing. They don’t do it seriously enough.
“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.”
Brown then offered the simplest possible assessment.
“He is him.”
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Brunson has never seemed particularly interested in debates about where he ranks among the league’s stars. Asked after the game about the pressure that came with becoming the face of the Knicks franchise, he offered a different definition.
“No pressure whatsoever,” Brunson said. “My dad being on eight or nine unguaranteed contracts throughout his career and not knowing when you’re going to get cut, while your family is on the east coast and you are wherever you are in the country, that’s pressure.”
Brunson said watching his father fight for roster spots throughout his NBA career shaped his perspective.
“I’m just never afraid to fail,” he said.
For Brunson’s oldest brothers-in-arms, the performance felt like the culmination of years of work.
Mikal Bridges first met Brunson as a teenager at Villanova, the small Catholic school on Philadelphia’s Main Line that’s always punched above its weight. A decade after winning national titles together under Jay Wright in 2016 and 2018, the pair are champions again on an even bigger stage.
“I’ve known him for so long,” Bridges said. “I know how much he works, how good of a person he is, how good of a basketball player he is. I’m just grateful to be on his side again.”
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Bridges said Brunson’s influence extends far beyond the box score.
“We follow him,” Bridges said. “It makes it easy for us. Very grateful to have Jalen be that guy, and we just follow his lead.”
For Josh Hart, one of Brunson’s closest friends and a member of the 2016 title team at Villanova before graduating to the NBA, none of it came as a surprise.
“Nah,” Hart said when asked if he was still shocked by Brunson’s brilliance. “We’ve been built for this moment. We’ve been forged in fire. We’ve had a lot of long moments and times and days at ‘Nova and we just continued to build and build and build. I feel like definitely Coach Wright helped us be cut from a different cloth. No matter what the moment is, it’s never too big for us.”
Hart described Brunson and Bridges as “brothers for life” and said winning an NBA title together surpassed even their college exploits. The achievement completed a journey that began at Villanova and made the trio the first teammates in basketball history to win both an NCAA title and an NBA championship together.
“This one takes the cake,” Hart said.
Robinson, the longest-tenured Knicks player, credited Brunson with changing the culture of the organization after arriving as a free agent in 2022.
“His mindset, his work ethic, his energy that he just brings,” Robinson said. “When stuff gets rough, we have a little sit-down talk and he gets us back on track, like a leader, like a captain.”
Brown argued that impact was visible long before Brunson ever stepped onto the court.
“I’ve got to give his mom credit, and I hate to say this but I’m going to give his dad credit, too. He understands what winning is about,” Brown said. “He set the bar before he even stepped on the floor.”
For Brunson, the emotions finally bubbled over after the final buzzer as he spent most of the post-game celebrations fighting back tears with occasional success.
“I walked right to half-court, shook [Spurs coach] Mitch Johnson’s hand, and then turned around and my dad was there,” Brunson said. “Then I just remember Josh talking into my ear and him just saying, ‘We did it. We did it.’”
Asked what it took to score 45 points and carry the Knicks to a long-sought championship, Brunson gave a one-word answer.
“Everything.”
On the biggest night in franchise history, that’s all it took.
