{"id":1987936,"date":"2026-06-13T11:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1987936"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T08:00:08","slug":"a-knicks-trio-won-titles-at-villanova-in-college-this-nba-finals-run-feels-reminiscent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1987936","title":{"rendered":"A Knicks trio won titles at Villanova in college. This NBA Finals run feels reminiscent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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During Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Max Strus drove to the paint, and Jalen Brunson jumped to contest his shot. Instead of trying to block the shot, Brunson jumped backward, and his hands went backward.<\/p>\n

Matt Fraschilla recognized an old Villanova teaching point immediately.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHands back,\u201d explained Fraschilla, who spent five years on Jay Wright\u2019s staff at Villanova and was a graduate assistant on the 2018 Villanova team that won a national title with Brunson and Mikal Bridges. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit like jumping for verticality except we would jump backwards so that they couldn\u2019t create contact and they always would lose kind of their balance or their ability to elevate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strus hung onto the ball longer than he usually would, allowing Karl-Anthony Towns to block his shot, and Fraschilla immediately grabbed his phone and sent a text to Wright.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJB still doing hands back eight years into the league as an All-Star is incredible,\u201d Fraschilla said. \u201cIt\u2019s testament to Coach\u2019s impact. We had a lot of things at Villanova that were basically a technique or terminology that was pretty ingrained into the culture, and a lot of it wasn\u2019t commonplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

That stuff is showing up on the NBA\u2019s biggest stage now, as the Knicks, led by three former Villanova teammates in Brunson, Bridges and Josh Hart, are one win away from winning the franchise\u2019s first title since 1973<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Villanova emerged as the best program in college basketball in the late 2010s, winning titles in 2016 (with Hart, Brunson and Bridges) and 2018 (with Brunson and Bridges). Those who witnessed that run are not surprised at what\u2019s happening now.<\/p>\n

When the Knicks signed Brunson in 2022 and then acquired Hart and Bridges via two trades on Feb. 9, 2023, their former teammates could see something special taking shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all know how to play off one another,\u201d said Phil Booth, who played for Villanova from 2014 through 2019 and was teammates with all three. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve been through so much together for so many years, you have a different level of connectivity that these guys have now. It was just like, man, it had to work. There\u2019s no way it couldn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That greatest comeback in NBA Finals history<\/a> on Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden was reminiscent of watching those Villanova teams.<\/p>\n

Former Xavier coach Chris Mack once said of Brunson that if you took his face off, he would probably have wires coming out of it. Brunson was always stoic, never letting the game\u2019s emotions affect his play.<\/p>\n

Villanova\u2019s 2016 title was won on one of the greatest buzzer-beaters in the history of the sport, a 25-footer from Kris Jenkins<\/a> that had NRG Stadium delirious, much like MSG on Wednesday, but if you watch Wright after that shot goes in, he simply walks down the sideline emotionless to shake the hand of North Carolina coach Roy Williams. When the Knicks won on Wednesday, Brunson barely reacted while everyone around him went crazy.<\/p>\n

That levelheadedness allowed the team to rally from a 29-point deficit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen things are going against them, they don\u2019t show too much body language,\u201d said Matt Kennedy, a former Villanova walk-on, several days before the historic comeback. \u201cThe big thing at Villanova was attitude, and don\u2019t show your emotion. I think that\u2019s what\u2019s allowed them to come back in a lot of games, that mindset and attitude; you can\u2019t really break them. They\u2019re just gonna keep coming and coming and coming at you.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCoach Wright just lived it, and you kind of didn\u2019t have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Brunson?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he set out to do something, he would do it,\u201d Fraschilla said. \u201cHe would refuse to not allow it to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Wright, who retired in 2022, was one of the best in the world at teaching simple fundamentals that translated to beautiful basketball. Villanova\u2019s pregame warmups were the basketball version of those old Tom Emanski baseball skills videos. Wright drilled playing off two feet, jump-stopping and pivoting.<\/p>\n

All three were present during one of the most aesthetically pleasing possessions of this postseason, an extremely Nova-esque sequence with multiple paint touches, everyone playing off two feet and continuing to draw two to the ball and then kicking it out until a great shot emerged.<\/p>\n

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This is quintessential five-out offense, extremely difficult to guard because of the spacing and presence of five shooters on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan,\u201d Booth said, \u201cit all looks real familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Booth said Wright would harp on the little details of the game, and executing those simple fundamentals became a part of their basketball DNA as they got older. \u201cWhen you\u2019re successful with it, and you win championships with it,\u201d Booth said, \u201cyou really believe in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stylistically, Wright was ahead of the curve in the modern game. He was one of the first to play small-ball, which these Knicks do. He was ahead of the 3-point revolution. His 2018 team actually attempted more 3s than 2s during its NCAA Tournament run, and from the 2013-14 season through his retirement in 2022, his teams took more than 40 percent of their shots from deep. The Knicks, who were slightly below the league average in 3-point rate, did lead the league in 3-point field-goal percentage, a result of not just the quality of shooters on the team but also the quality of shots.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Wright) always taught us that you\u2019re most open when you catch the ball, so always catch the ball ready to shoot,\u201d Booth said. \u201cThat caught people off guard, the way we shoot the ball. Then after that, you can shot fake, play off your jump shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Booth is now a basketball operations associate with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and one of his roles is college scouting. Wright was also elite at player evaluations. Between his two title teams, Brunson and Omari Spellman were the only top-20 recruits, and Booth leans on what he learned about the type of people Wright brought in.<\/p>\n

\u201cCharacter was a big thing,\u201d Booth said.<\/p>\n

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\n Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges were all part of the celebration after Kris Jenkins\u2019 game-winner over North Carolina in 2016. (Scott Halleran \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Bridges, who ranked 96th in his recruiting class, redshirted as a freshman but worked like he was playing every game. Kennedy used to return at night with Bridges to get up shots. Once Bridges was eligible, he would show up four hours ahead of tip-off to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the groundwork that he got that year really just paid dividends and allowed him to kind of rapidly improve the following years,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cAnd then even as he got good, and even to this day in the league, the dude just never misses a game. On days off, he\u2019s getting massages and treatment, and he\u2019s willing to drive an hour to go get a special treatment because his knee hurts. He\u2019s never, ever, ever cutting corners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bridges has not missed a game in six of his eight NBA seasons.<\/p>\n

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Hart was admired in the program because of his tenacity. Now, in the NBA, he\u2019s known as a hustle guy who is an elite rebounder at 6-5.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a work ethic too, but more so than most guys, he had the ability to just kind of turn it on,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cMikal could score on him twice or beat him on a back cut, and then all of a sudden his intensity would just go up to a level. He could just get to another gear, and he just was not gonna be stopped. He\u2019s probably the most competitive guy that I was around during my time at Nova.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Brunson, who Kennedy said had a \u201cmaniacal\u201d work ethic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was incredibly dedicated to his habits, and his habits were not just basketball habits,\u201d Fraschilla said. \u201cIt was how he slept, how he ate, the way he took care of his body. Other than maybe our walk-ons, I think he might\u2019ve had the highest GPA on our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brunson maintained a routine that also amazed his teammates. He often had late-night workouts with his dad, current Knicks assistant Rick Brunson. That required a certain intensity that was non-negotiable, and Fraschilla said Brunson would never let up even though he had already practiced, already lifted and knew he\u2019d be returning for hot yoga at 6 a.m. the next morning.<\/p>\n

The walk-ons and Fraschilla would often help rebound or play defense during those workouts, and they could see the work paying off, as Brunson went from averaging 9.6 points on the 2016 title team as a freshman to more than doubling his production as a junior when he won National Player of the Year and Villanova won a second title.<\/p>\n

\u201cJalen\u2019s ability to just kind of take whatever criticism it was and then process it and fix whatever he needed to fix was really, really, really good,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cYou could almost see it before your eyes, his improvement in whatever he was working on at a pretty rapid rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Then, he was off to study.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said he\u2019d often find Brunson after those workouts in the film room doing his schoolwork. \u201cThe guy is always going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His teammates respected Brunson for that, but also for how he treated them.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen I met him for the first time, I was kind of taken aback because he was just so normal,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cA lot of times, as a walk-on, you go meet the guys who are big time, and they shake your hand, but they don\u2019t look you in the eye or whatever. It doesn\u2019t bother you. These kids are highly touted high schoolers. But Jalen was just like this really, really thoughtful, nice guy. It almost seemed weird how nice he was and just how level-headed he was. \u2026 Even when he was National Player of the Year, he didn\u2019t all of a sudden become like this cool kid, like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m Jalen Brunson, and I got more trophies than anybody here.\u2019 Every year, Jalen was getting more and more publicity and praise, but he didn\u2019t change.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Brunson got married in the summer of 2023, it wasn\u2019t just his former scholarship teammates in attendance; Fraschilla and the walk-ons were there. Kennedy, who lives in Manhattan, has had a family pass to the Knicks games for a few years. First from former Villanova\/Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo, then Hart and now Bridges, who was the best man in his wedding and lives five minutes from him.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has been to all but one playoff game during this run and was joined for Games 2 and 3 of the Finals by Booth.<\/p>\n

They say their old teammates do not act any differently on the verge of being NBA champs. Bridges will still give Kennedy a hard time for having to go to bed early, acting shocked if he FaceTimes past 9:30 p.m. and Kennedy is awake. The core of those Villanova teams still plays fantasy football together.<\/p>\n

Now, they\u2019re all rooting for the Knicks, taking pride in what the Villanova program helped create.<\/p>\n

Wright has not done any media during this run, but his influence is obvious to those who witnessed it firsthand.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Wright) said it at the time when he was coaching these guys, I\u2019m teaching you guys this stuff because when you get to the NBA you\u2019re gonna be able to play a different style,\u201d Fraschilla said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have to change when they got to the NBA. The stuff that made them really good at Villanova is the stuff that\u2019s making them really great as NBA players, which I think is a really cool testament to Coach Wright and his philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Max Strus drove to the paint, and Jalen Brunson jumped to contest his shot. Instead of trying to block the shot, Brunson jumped backward, and his hands went backward. Matt Fraschilla recognized an old Villanova teaching point immediately. Advertisement \u201cHands back,\u201d explained Fraschilla, who […]<\/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-1987936","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\/1987936","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=1987936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1987936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1987936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1987936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1987936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}