Jalen Brunson Is New York’s Exorcist
With a 94-90 win in Game 5, yet another doughty comeback and superlative Jalen Brunson takeover, the New York Knicks are NBA Champions. This is an unsettling and unusual thing to say, because they are the New York Knicks.
Knicks fandom has, historically, been about feeling bad. But feeling bad together is still a communal experience. Much of the conversation in New York these past two months has involved proving and sharing fan bona fides, and given their track record, that takes the form of bragging about all the ways the Knicks have made us feel bad. It was a game of one-upmanship that everybody lost. The Charles Smith game. Oh yeah? How about the Reggie Miller game? Oh yeah? I lived through Eddy Curry. Oh yeah? Well, I believed in Frank Ntilikina. Oh yeah? I thought Kevin Knox was going to be a superstar. That sort of thing. (I don’t believe in omens, but Knox and his Fortnite suit might’ve been both the low point and a portent. Take a look at this photo of him and their other draftee that 2018 evening—now the longest tenured Knick—and their jersey numbers.)
Phil Jackson once said of his time with the Bulls that Madison Square Garden crowds were among the easiest to play against because of their pessimism. Fear was not very far below the surface; even a loud, seemingly confident crowd needed the smallest amount of stress to crack completely. They had seen it too many times, and expected it, and got it. Even now, the thought of the organ priming fans to chant “defense” inspires Nam-style flashbacks to all the times the Knicks needed a stop that they would not get. It was an unpleasant way to live. It felt bad.
And then a crazy thing happened this spring. Only good things started happening. Blowouts, comebacks, close games that the Knicks traditionally had lost 99 times out of 100, they won. It took some time to accept this was happening. A traumatized fanbase, like a stray cat, had to be taught how to have normal, healthy emotions.
A 51-point win to close out the Hawks was the first sign that something strange may have been afoot. The Knicks were not only athletically superior to an opponent, but better coached and more mentally prepared, too. Four straight against the Sixers, and it was the Sixers who repeatedly came to pieces when faced with a well-oiled offensive machine. Four straight off the Cavaliers, who promised to pose a challenge and did not even come close. “Knicks in four” became the greeting of choice in the city somewhere along the way, but it still had an air of irony to it. Not even the truest believers, I think, felt in the darkest reaches of their hearts that the Knicks were capable of or likely to sweep a series. But 53 years of cynicism, earned as it was, had won them nothing but bad feelings. Why not try something new? I will not say this not-entirely-felt confidence manifested itself with actual success. But I will say people were out here telling their doormen and drug dealers and bus drivers, “Knicks in four,” and then it kept happening.
Whatever demons used to haunt MSG, Jalen Brunson cast them out. It was as if he was capable of taking a half-century’s worth of neuroses on himself, and rebuking them drive by drive. He simply did not allow the Knicks the chance to lose, or fans the chance to fret or wallow. When closing time neared, the ball rarely left his hands. A series of drives to the rim, feather-soft floaters, fearless threes. He propped up leads with his relentless attacking; he shored up the late-game box score against those dreaded and familiar collapses.
Unanimously voted Finals MVP, Brunson had 45 points in Game 4, none bigger than a four-minute stretch in the fourth quarter in which he outscored the Spurs 13-2 by himself. There were no miracle shots in there either, or much in the way of attempted hero ball. He simply pressed the San Antonio defense to see where it sagged, and seized upon what it offered him. Usually, his calculus was as simple as Did Wemby get back? If not, drive immediately. If so, pull up and try to create some space. But on one play early in that four-minute stretch, he found himself guarded by Victor Wembanyana with the clock ticking away. So he drove past the big man with his off-hand for a bucket. By that point it felt more like a question of will than anything else, and no one wanted it more.
A 10-point Spurs lead became the Knicks’ first lead since the game started 3-2 (on a Brunson three, of course), and then, when San Antonio tied it up again with just over a minute left, it was Brunson again with a driving floater to seize it back for good. Every Spur and their coach knew who was taking those shots when they mattered the most, and they couldn’t stop it.
That was the story of every game in the Finals, more or less. The Spurs could’ve, maybe should’ve won each of them. They led by double-digits in every first quarter. They led within the final four minutes of all of them. They blew leads of 14, 12, 29, and 16. They led for 72 percent of the series. And still they lost 4-1. They looked young, tired, scared. They didn’t have a closer. They had trouble adjusting. They felt the pressure where a more seasoned Knicks team thrived under it.
I just had to pinch myself typing that out, because it’s always been the Knicks who lose like that—painfully, inexplicably, inexorably. If there’s a way to turn any situation into a feel-bad story, it’s the Knicks who have historically found it. But these aren’t your father’s or grandfather’s Knicks. For years, they tried to chase megastars, to make the one big splash that would instantly turn around the franchise’s fortunes. Their failure to do that led to spinning tires for decades. But these Knicks were constructed as an actual team. Brunson was viewed as a potential overpay, but he proved a cornerstone. Landing Karl-Anthony Towns required a painful trade of some well-liked players. Getting OG Anunoby wouldn’t have been possible without some draft success to cash out. Mikal Bridges was the living embodiment of “fuck them picks.” Everyone had a role, and everyone knew their role, and played it uncomplainingly. Can’t win with an undersized, offense-only point guard? Well, maybe you can if you surround him with three elite defensive wings, and a playmaking, shot-creating big man, and back them up with a bench mob of specialists. There wasn’t any one thing these Knicks couldn’t do well. There was, by the end, a feeling of inevitability—that whatever hole they found themselves in, they would dig out. Fatalism, for the first time in the living memory of most Knicks fans, ran the other way.
Exorcising these demons means letting them out one last time, so allow me this indulgence before Knicks fans permanently transition from pitiable sad sacks to just another annoying fanbase. Here are my scars: I remember being mad at O.J. Simpson for interrupting my Finals game. I waited on line to get Mike Sweetney’s autograph. The greatest thing that ever happened to me at a Knicks game was seeing Bobcats owner Michael Jordan from several hundred feet away. I wouldn’t shut up for nearly two decades about a David Lee play. I believed Tim Hardaway Jr. could be a second or at worst third option on a contender. But one thing I never did think about was a championship. I couldn’t even imagine one in the abstract. That’s for other teams. And then this happens? “Knicks fan, this is not a dream,” Mike Breen assured us after the final buzzer.
Maybe that time in the wilderness, those decades of bad feeling, were some sort of preemptive penance; or possibly a much-needed humbling to make this championship feel like the triumph of a lifetime. Would Knicks fans do it all over again? Go through all that losing, if this moment waited at the end? Hell no. It SUCKED. But man, does it feel good today.
