With one stellar performance after another, the indomitable point guard is leading a New York Knicks revival
I.
Jalen Brunson had Buddy Hield on an island. Paradise for the Knicks point guard, hell for the former Pacer. Brunson has land just off the sand, views of the water, pontoons, pumas. He keeps them as pets. Pumas are the new wave, the French bulldog of tomorrow. Hield’s staying in a lean-to made of sticks. Zero amenities. Zero pets. The roof is made of busted palms and old ninja-style Nike headbands from before the NBA banned them. And the wind is ripping. And there are wolves. And they’re hungry. And his bathroom’s a hole. He dug it himself. And sometimes, at night, when the jungle’s black and the fire’s out, he falls in. If you’re trying to guard Jalen Brunson in the year 2024, the toilet hole is very near. Proceed with extreme caution and whatever munitions are available. Bring potions, spells if you have them. He does. He has spells for sure. Diabolical, butcherly incantations. The man’s bag is bursting with abracadabras.
This was February 1, 2024, the day Brunson found out he made his first All-Star team. Five minutes left in the fourth, Knickerbockers up two, Brunson with the ball at the top of the key [stove clicking]. An air of inevitability about him. That’s to say, he looked like someone who was about to score. And he knew it, and Hield knew it, and the New York crowd did too. Brunson gave Hield a little in-and-out with the left, then took him to the kitchen. Between the legs once, twice, exploded to his left, and got to his spot at the elbow. He let it go.
One possession earlier, Knicks television analyst and Hall of Fame wordsmith Walt Frazier had declared Brunson “indomitable.” When the pull-up went in this time, Knicks play-by-play king Mike Breen did Clyde one further. Delirious screams came blazing through the television, MSG gushing, in a frenzy, Breen booming over it all: Jalen Brunson—born to play basketball.
Brunson ended the game with 40 and a win, New York’s ninth in a row. The shot further validated Knicks fans’ feeling that their point guard is that dude, a man who could deliver them from decades in the NBA wilderness. When Brunson gets hot in front of a New York crowd, it’s one of the best shows in sports: a camera-shaking, volume-cranking Manhattan rhapsody. His heaters feel like tent revivals. Brother Brunson shakes free at the top of the key and gives the people the good word. And the congregants are moved to the point of hysteria. There’s jumping and stomping and shouting and clapping. Some of the boring guys seated courtside do the Wayne’s World “We’re not worthy” thing. Tracy Morgan and Spike Lee hug. The bills of their Knicks hats kiss. Cut to Josh Hart speaking on immaculate vibes and Action Bronson pumping his fist, taking care not to spill his beverage. It’s spring, and the Garden’s bursting. Brunson saves.
II.
The official trailer for a new MasterClass dropped two months ago: “Win Big in Business With Mark Cuban.” The video is 1 minute and 9 seconds long, and Cubes offers some piping-hot business jewels gratis. Some of that Shark Tank genius for the price of on the house. The former owner of the Dallas Mavericks drops pearls like, “You should prioritize not spending money” and “You’ve got to stay in business.” He begins another sentence, “Being a disruptor …” His best line, though: “No one remembers my failures.” And Marcus, speak the wrong words, man, and you will get touched. That’s just not accurate. The internet’s memory is long, and your face-plants are many. Let’s start with the reports of a hostile workplace and years of sexual harassment and assault that took place within the organization under his ownership. Then there’s the basketball variety. There are big failures like not bringing back Tyson Chandler, funny failures like making Roddy Beaubois untouchable, and big and funny failures like not re-signing Brunson. For those reasons, I’m out.
Hard to believe there was once a time when people questioned whether Brunson deserved the four-year, $104 million deal New York gave him in July 2022. The sixth-year point man out of Villanova has rendered that talking point obsolete. You’d make more sense saying grass is blue. That an undersized former second-round pick has found his way onto some voters’ MVP ballots is a testament to his resolve, his development, and the way he grinds. Leaving Dallas and Luka Doncic’s shadow for the blazing lights of MSG has allowed Brunson to become his fullest basketball self, the unquestioned leader for the team his dad used to play on and now assistant coaches. There are childhood pictures of Brunson standing on the court at MSG wearing a Knicks jersey. The circle is full. Bing bong.
III.
The numbers and wins speak volumes about Brunson’s ability to put the team on his back, but it’s his singular aesthetic, his specific vintage, that makes him such a show. He’s an escape artist. Drives to the basket with a bald face and silver tongue. His pants are on fire. Every stutter a tall tale. Every lift fake a yarn spun. Brunson whirls away from his defender, acts with his whole being like he’s going for the stepback; then the flyby happens, some poor soul soaring past, and the Knicks PG steps through for 2. Defenders like Carol Kane in The Princess Bride. Liar!
Photo by David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images
Brunson layers his attacks with ciphers and optical illusions. Great internal rhythm, high IQ. Stays at his tempo. There’s an elegance to Brunson’s probing and weaving. He leads with craft, but there also exists in him a bruiser, delivering straight-line drives, absorbing contact, getting acrobatic on the finish. It’s a diverse portfolio o’ buckets. The shotmaking has been absurd. Degree of difficulty thru the roof. Seen all manner of defensive coverages this season and found counters for them all. Teammates have been dropping like flies the entire season. Brunson himself has been periodically banged up and is regularly the smallest person on the floor. No matter. No wavering. A scrapper’s delight, defenders stuck off the realness. He has breathed Technicolor life back into a franchise desperate for anything resembling competency and does not get shook. Steadiness found. Fireworks, too.
That he’s doing all this at 6-foot-1 barefoot feels like something people should be freaking out about more. The great undersized guards are quails and chameleons, their highlights hitting super high on the “How did he do that?” scale. Brunson’s another gem in a long line of small lefties who have enriched the NBA. Examples pop up across generations. Nick Van Exel, Cuttino Mobley, Tiny Archibald, Damon Stoudamire, Kenny Anderson, Isaiah Thomas, Lenny Wilkens. Brunson’s got the torch now, and he’s carrying it with style.
Can get it done at all three levels. Since his arrival in New York, he’s been banging triples at a tasty clip. Turned himself into one of the most dangerous 3-point shooters in the league, holds the follow-through like he’s in an instructional video. Left arm like a scorpion tail. The range is expansive. The handle is taut. The footwork is alakazam. The feet of a dancer. Brunson really knows his way around the deep 3s now. Guy’s firing from Timbuktu off the bounce. He has the wiggle to get free, has the stepback in his holster, and he plays it fortissimo. Because teams have to fear him from all the way out there, the rest of the floor opens up so he can dice the defense in the in-between spaces and make hay in the midrange.
So, yes, the pull-up game has gone up a level. And, yes, the bank is always open. There’s a whole lotta escapability off the dribble. [Larry David finding the right word voice:] He slithers in. Finds a seam, finds the paint, spins, spins, Dream Shakes, spins, salchow, and bucket. The balance is outrageous, the touch uncommon. Can launch teardrops from any angle. Quick-release, wrong-foot floaters peaking higher than the backboard. He’s got some knuckleballer to him. Changes directions like a bat, sprinkles in head fakes, mixes up his speeds, uses angles and leverage and the defender’s positioning against them. He pirouettes his way into the lane, hits the brakes, then the hydraulics. More on the brakes. We’re talking top-of-the-line, genuine Callahan auto brake pads. Only the finest. Straight from Sandusky. The spectrometer readout on the nickel-cadmium alloy mix indicates a good, rich strobe and fade, decreasing incidents of wear to the pressure plate. If Brunson lands on two feet and can use either pivot foot, best of luck to the poor sap trying to Pecos Bill that tornado. Brunson does his best Taz, puts himself and the defense in a blender, gets mystical.
At the rim, he’ll shape-shift around the center, absorb contact, double clutch, and scoop in some well-Englished illusion off the glass. He keeps the defense in the passenger seat, keeps hugging the corners, stays aggressive. Shifty and confounding in tight spaces but maintains fluidity. Probably cha-chas real smooth. Probably can’t not cha-cha real smooth. Probably the only way he knows how to cha-cha.
IV.
Brunson delivered another 40-piece in the final game of the regular season, an overtime slugfest W over the Bulls that earned New York the second seed in the East. Some of the Knicks’ Eastern Conference adversaries decided to go another route in their finales. Milwaukee and Cleveland happily took Ls, both losing on varying degrees of purpose to avoid a first-round battle with a back-from-injury Joel Embiid and the Sixers. Karma points and Conan bows to the team uninterested in ducking anybody. These Knicks worry about the game in front of them and cross bridges when they get there, Brunson leading the charge, elevating everyone, bringing them along for the rise.
And so it was that the Knicks drew the Sixers in a first-round rumble. Brunson has kept on rising. After a less-than-stellar first couple of games, New York’s new king has gone berserk in the last two. He put up 39 points and 13 assists in a loss in Game 3, then dropped a scalding 47 and 10 in the Knicks’ Game 4 win on Sunday. He had an answer for every question the Sixers threw at him, spent the better part of the game mean-mugging anyone he made eye contact with, and generally played like a man possessed. He was staring daggers and throwing them, flexing, eating real good. His 47 set a new Knicks playoff record, surpassing the 46 scored (twice) by fellow Knicks legend Bernard King against the Pistons in 1984. Between his buckets and assists, Brunson was responsible for 70 of his team’s 97 points. Now, with New York leading the series 3-1, it’s back to the Garden for Game 5. MSG will be volcanic and rowdy, Knicks fans full of belief that Brunson will find a way to send them home beaming.
No one thought he would be this, and that makes it all the more special. Brunson’s turning in one of the most entertaining seasons of basketball in Knicks history. At every turn, he has blown through whatever ceiling has been arbitrarily placed on him and proved his doubters to be total ding-dongs, complete fools. Brunson has bloomed in New York. He marries supreme bucket-getting with supreme effort, leaves it all out there. It’s easy to like a player who gives everything they have, someone who has exhausted themselves and their abilities in the name of competition. Brunson plays with his soul on his sleeve and the stove lit. He’s willing to take the weight of the game on his shoulders, willing to fail, willing to say, “OK, I’ll be part of this world.”