{"id":1948958,"date":"2026-05-22T09:45:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1948958"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:45:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T06:45:50","slug":"knicks-captain-jalen-brunson-is-on-his-way-to-a-legendary-new-york-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1948958","title":{"rendered":"Knicks captain Jalen Brunson is on his way to a legendary New York place"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NEW YORK \u2014 Jalen Brunson was all set to have himself a night. He is the captain of the New York Knicks and, at the moment, the prince of a city that was so ready to celebrate a long holiday weekend with another Euro-step toward a championship 53 years in waiting.<\/p>\n

Oh, and James Harden was still on the other side of the ball. At 36, The Beard can still do a lot of things on a basketball court.<\/p>\n

Covering Jalen Brunson isn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n

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And sure enough, on the first possession of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, Brunson jogged into the right corner and waited for Josh Hart to screen his man, Cleveland\u2019s Dean Wade, freeing Brunson to take a handoff from OG Anunoby and to square up with the switching Harden.<\/p>\n

The Madison Square Garden crowd made a noise that was hard to define, yet sure sounded like whatever anticipation sounds like. Brunson dribbled left, beat the man he destroyed in his 38-point performance in Game 1, and lofted a floater over Jarrett Allen for a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

During the afternoon, the NBA had tweeted out a reminder that Brunson had scored more fourth-quarter postseason points (416) over the last four years than any other player. But after this first trip down the floor Thursday night, it didn\u2019t seem like the Knicks\u2019 franchise player was going to wait until the final 12 minutes to turn loose on Harden and the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n

And then something strange happened over the balance of the first half. Brunson missed his next five field goal attempts and didn\u2019t score another point. Not one. He would finish this 109-93 victory<\/a> with 19 points on 7-for-16 shooting (1-for-7 from 3-point range) \u2014 a modest output for him, but fine in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n

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As it turned out, the only number that mattered in his box score was 14. His assist total. A personal playoff high.<\/p>\n

Brunson felt the game, realized that Hart was feeling it on his way to 26 points, and let it all unfold in the Knicks\u2019 favor for their ninth consecutive playoff victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what great players do, right?\u201d said the losing coach, Kenny Atkinson, whose Game 1 strategy was shredded by the opponent he was praising again on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey read the game, and the game dictated that. Obviously, we were loaded up more to him, and he found other guys. \u2026 Took away some of his scoring options, blitzed him, gave him different looks. He made the right reads, the right plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the process, Brunson revealed that his is not a one-dimensional greatness. He doesn\u2019t just beat you with his jump shot, with herky-jerky drives, and with footwork that matches up with all the footwork geniuses of the past.<\/p>\n

Brunson also beats you with the ability and willingness to share the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s about winning,\u201d Miles McBride said. \u201cWe knew that from the jump. Obviously, he\u2019s one of the best scorers in the league, but the fact that he\u2019s willing to just be selfless and give up the ball when guys are double-teaming him proves that he just wants to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what kind of message a captain and all-world scorer coming off a 38-point night sends to his team by following it up with a 14-assist night, Mikal Bridges said, \u201cA great message.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just shows that he plays the right way. If you\u2019re not going to send a double team, I think it\u2019s an advantage for him. If you send a double team, he\u2019s going to read and react and find the open guy and play the right way. Ever since I\u2019ve known him, he\u2019s played the right way. \u2026 If you\u2019re going to keep helping off, he\u2019s going to make you pay, and that\u2019s what makes him great.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What You Should Read Next<\/div>\n
\n \"Josh<\/p>\n
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\n Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns lead Knicks past Cavs in comfortable Game 2 win\n <\/div>\n
\n The Knicks needed a historic fourth-quarter run and OT to win Game 1. All they needed in Game 2 was Josh Hart.\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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On arrival in the summer of 2022, a lot of smart New York basketball people weren\u2019t sure if Brunson could be the second-best player on a championship team. Now it looks more and more like Brunson can be the best player on a title winner, or at least the best player on a team strong enough to push the Western Conference winner to six or seven games in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

It only took him four seasons to earn a place among the Knicks\u2019 forever titans. I\u2019d already put Brunson above franchise icons the likes of Dave DeBusschere, Bernard King and Earl Monroe. My top four goes like this:<\/p>\n

1. Patrick Ewing
\n2. Walt Frazier
\n3. Willis Reed
\n4. Jalen Brunson<\/p>\n

At age 29, Brunson has time to climb that list and, perhaps, to finish his career at the very top. If he wins the Knicks\u2019 first championship since 1973, Brunson will be right there with Mark Messier, the lion who ended a 54-year Rangers drought by winning the 1994 Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

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Not that his coach, Mike Brown, is surprised by the stunning ascension of this former second-round pick. \u201cI\u2019m Linus and Jalen\u2019s my blanket,\u201d Brown said earlier in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helps me relax a lot of different times throughout the course of games. That\u2019s what great players do. They keep you poised and make the game easier for everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The way Brown saw it, in this triumph over the Cavs, Brunson was just doing his job as an MVP-level player. He was making the game easier for his teammates (and coach) by not forcing the issue, and by getting the ball to the people who were seeing the rim better than Brunson was seeing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, they\u2019re presenting two to the ball,\u201d Brunson said of Cleveland\u2019s approach. \u201cI was able to find my teammates. They were knocking shots down. Just trying to create an advantage by putting two on the ball, trusting them to have to make the play.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the NBA\u2019s most clutch postseason player in recent years put his franchise two victories away from its first trip to the NBA Finals since 1999 by being a good teammate and doing what a captain does.<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson scored half the points in Game 2 that he scored in Game 1, and still came away the night\u2019s big winner. He is closing hard on a special place in New York sports history. Good luck stopping him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Jalen Brunson was all set to have himself a night. He is the captain of the New York Knicks and, at the moment, the prince of a city that was so ready to celebrate a long holiday weekend with another Euro-step toward a championship 53 years in waiting. Oh, and James Harden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1948958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1948958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1948958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1948958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1948958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}