New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson (11) drives as San Antonio Spurs guard Devin Vassell (24) and guard Dylan Harper (2) defend during the second half of Game 5 of the NBA Finals basketball series, Saturday, June 13, 2026, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
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As the final buzzer sounded Saturday night, giving the New York Knicks their first NBA title in 53 years, assistant coach Rick Brunson walked toward halfcourt at the Frost Bank Center. He hugged his son, Jalen, the star point guard who scored 45 points in the Knicks’ 94-90 Game 5 road victory over the San Antonio Spurs that long-suffering New York fans have been dreaming about for decades and will never forget. Rick then kissed Jalen on his forehead before Jalen wrapped a towel around his head.
“I felt emotional from that point on,” said Brunson, referring to the embrace with his father. “And then I just remember (teammate Josh Hart) talking into my ear, him just saying, ‘We did it. We did it.’ I was emotional for a good five, 10 minutes and then the excitement started to kick in.”
Brunson, a second round pick in 2018, wasn’t supposed to be the best player on a championship team. Heck, many thought he might not be a starter in the NBA. But he is now undoubtedly a Knicks’ legend who had one of the best performances in league history. It is the most points any Knick has scored in an NBA finals game and tied with Michael Jordan in 1998 for the most points in a clinching championship victory on the road. Brunson now may be the most beloved and decorated Knick since Walt Frazier, the point guard on championship teams in 1970 and 1973, the only other times they won the title.
Before Brunson signed as a free agent in 2022, the Knicks had made the playoffs just six times in the previous 22 years and won only one postseason series. But with Brunson leading the charge, plus the free agent signings and trades for the other starters (Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby), the Knicks gradually improved. They made the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2023 and 2024. Last season, they advanced to the conference finals for the first time since 2000. And now, they are just the third team in franchise history to win the title and will always be revered among Knicks’ fans. The Knicks won 15 of their last 16 playoff games, the lone blemish coming in Game 3 of the finals when they lost 115-111 at Madison Square Garden.
For Brunson, the win is extra special because he has known about the Knicks’ tortured history since before he entered kindergarten. His father was a little-used reserve guard on the New York teams that lost in the 1999 finals to the Spurs and in the 2000 conference finals to the Indiana Pacers. Brunson, who was born in August 1996, has fond memories from those days.
“I remember running around the locker room, running around the court after the game,” Brunson told me in 2018 when he led Villanova to the Big East tournament championship. “The little things like that.”
While Rick Brunson averaged just over three points per game in nine NBA seasons, he helped his son, especially after retiring as a player in 2006, even as Rick became an assistant and was on the road during the season. Still, Rick made sure not to push too hard.
“A lot of times, Rick would say, ‘I’m not going to be one of those parents. I don’t need him to do this. It has to be him. It has to be him,’” Sandra Brunson, Jalen’s mother, told me in 2018. “Jalen always came back. He always came back. Jalen was just adamant.”
After Brunson won two NCAA tournament championships at Villanova and the national player of the year in 2018, the Dallas Mavericks selected him with the 33rd pick in the draft. Brunson improved during his four seasons in Dallas, including averaging 16.3 points and 4.8 assists per game in the 2021-22 season. But that summer, he signed with the Knicks, which also hired his father as an assistant and made him the centerpiece, something the Mavericks would never do.
In each of the past three seasons, Brunson has averaged at least 26 points and made the All-NBA second team. He has been even better in the playoffs, averaging 29.8 points and scoring at least 40 points in 10 of his 50 postseason games with the Knicks.
Still, nothing compares with Saturday night. At the end of the first quarter, the Knicks trailed 23-13, the fewest points they scored in a quarter this series. They were down by at least 10 points in the first quarter in each game against the Spurs. All told, they were outscored 157-101 in the first quarter in the finals.
“For some reason, I feel like the game for us starts 30 minutes later than it’s supposed to,” Brunson told Ernie Johnson on the postgame podium Saturday. “We didn’t show up at 8:30. We showed up at 9:00.”
At halftime, Brunson had 16 points and made 50% of his field goals, but the Knicks were down 42-37, with the other New York players making just 21.9% of their shots. They then got into an even deeper hole, falling behind by seven at the end of the third even as Brunson scored 14 in the quarter.
Brunson started the fourth on the bench before returning with the Knicks down 81-71 with 8:51 left. But about a minute later, Brunson drew a foul on Spurs guard Stephon Castle while shooting a 3-pointer, the start of a stretch when he scored the Knicks’ next 13 points.
With 3:40 remaining, Brunson made three free throws to put New York ahead 86-85, its first lead since it was 5-4. The Knicks never trailed again. Brunson scored his final points on a floater with 1:05 left, giving the Knicks a 90-88 advantage. From there, the Knicks made just four of eight free throws, but the Spurs couldn’t convert on multiple chances to tie or take the lead.
Brunson had 45 points on 14 of 27 field goals (51.9%), 4 of 7 3’s (57.1%) and 13 of 15 free throws (86.7%), while the rest of the Knicks had 49 points on 17 of 60 field goals (28.3%), 8 of 30 3’s (26.7%) and 7 of 13 free throws (53.8%). In the second half, Brunson had 29 points on 8 of 15 shooting (53.3%), 1 of 3 on 3’s (33%) and 12 of 13 free throws (92.3%), while his teammates 27 points on 10 of 28 field goals 35.7%), 4 of 15 on 3’s (26.7%) and 4 of 8 on free throws (50%).
“I’ve known him for so long,” said Bridges, Brunson’s teammate at Villanova. “I know how much he works, how great of a person he is, how great of a basketball player he is. I’m just grateful to be on his side again.”
Said Knicks guard Landry Shamet: “He is generationally great offensively…Unbelievable performance by him. He obviously deserves all the flowers coming his way.”
Brunson, as is his custom, deflected much of the praise coming his way. He prefers to talk about the process and his teammates.
“Words can’t describe it,” Brunson said. “But I’ll say I put a lot of time and effort into trying to be the best player I can be and try to help a team win. I’m just really thankful I have the organization, the coaching staff, my teammates, to have my back every single day. I think that means the most to me.”
Throughout the postseason, Knicks coach Mike Brown has referred to Brunson as a top-three candidate for the league’s Most Valuable Player award. While he didn’t finish in the top three of the MVP voting in the regular season, he did win the finals MVP, a much more satisfying honor.
“Everybody kind of mentions his name in passing,” Brown said. “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 freakin’ 1A.”
Brown joked that he wouldn’t have taken a pay cut as Brunson did in the summer of 2024 when he signed a four-year, $156.5 million extension, $113 million less than he could have made if he had waited a year, per ESPN.
“He set the bar before he even stepped on the floor, every time it came to renegotiate a deal with him,” said Brown, who the Knicks hired last summer after firing coach Tom Thibodeau. “That set the standard. Now when you take his play into account, it’s off the charts, man.”
Hart, who has known Brunson since they were teammates at Villanova, doesn’t need any convincing about what Brunson means to the Knicks or where he stands in the NBA pantheon. And Hart understands part of why Brunson is here is because of the relationship with his father, a journeyman player who has helped his son develop into a Knicks legend, right up there with anyone who’s worn the New York uniform since the franchise’s inception 80 years ago.
“Man, it’s so cool to see that,” Hart said. “They’ve worked so hard to get to this point, both of them, respectively. When you’re able to do that with your Dad, both played on the same team, that’s something they’re going to remember for the rest of their lives.”
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