Jalen Brunson entered a sports pantheon reserved for legendary figures. Names such as Ruth, Mantle, Jeter, Taylor, Namath, Reed, and Frazier are revered in New York.
Brunson added his name to this exclusive club after leading the New York Knicks to their first NBA title since 1973. Brunson will be worshiped like a conquering hero for the rest of his life. His story will be told thousands of times. There will be a generation of young players who will emulate him. His legend will only grow as time passes.
Because he brought home an NBA championship to New York, Brunson earned a special badge of honor. When you win a basketball chip for New York, you get extra special treatment and recognition. He is arguably the greatest Knickerbocker. Basketball is deeply embedded in the fabric of New York. There are dozens of basketball courts spread across the five boroughs. And outside of a few pockets of Nets fans across Brooklyn, the vast majority of New Yorkers are Knicks fans.
“People don’t understand the weight of that jersey,” Knicks forward Josh Hart, Brunson’s teammate at Villanova, said about being a New York Knick.
Brunson understood the weight of wearing a New York Knicks jersey. He understood the assignment when he signed a team-friendly four-year, $104 million free agent contract in 2022. In four years, Brunson did something other Knicks greats like Patrick Ewing, Bernard King, and Carmelo Anthony couldn’t do. The fan base loved all of them. But none of them completed the job. Brunson was the one who carried the Knicks across the finish line. He won a chip. He ended decades of heartache and misery for a proud franchise.
Brunson has only been a New York Knick for four years, but winning a championship puts him on a whole different level.
“He’s a top-three MVP candidate,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said of his point guard, who received the Bill Russell award for winning MVP of the 2026 NBA Finals.
“People say he’s too small,” Brown said. “People say he’s a 1-B or 2-B or whatever. He is a freaking 1-A. He is an MVP candidate, and I hope — and I’m talking to the media more than the fans — I hope you guys recognize what this man is about because he is an A1 MVP. He is him. He is him.
“Jalen Brunson is him when it comes to New York basketball. He is freaking him, man.”
Brunson, who is listed at 6-2, became the fourth second-round pick to win Finals MVP. The last second-round pick to win Finals MVP was Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic in 2023.
Despite winning two NCAA titles at Villanova, Brunson kept hearing the same negative scouting reports. Too short. Too slow. But all he does is win. He keeps proving the doubters wrong. He certainly made a believer out of the San Antonio Spurs.
The Knicks captain averaged 32.6 points per game in the five-game series against the Spurs. He didn’t shoot particularly well (42.1% from the field), but he was magical when it mattered most. He scored 15 of his 45 points in the fourth quarter of Game 5. It was the most points scored in a road close-out game of the NBA Finals since Michael Jordan did it in 1998.
Game 5 played out the same as the previous four Finals games. The Spurs jumped out to a big lead in the first quarter. The Knicks slowly chipped away. The Spurs struggled to close out the game. Once the game got tight, it was Brunson — dubbed Captain Clutch for making big shots in the weighty moments — who seized the moment and put the Knicks on his back.
Brunson made a driving layup with 4:38 left in the fourth to tie the game at 83, capping off a 10-0 Knicks run. Then with 3:40 remaining, he drew a foul on Devin Vassell while shooting a 3-point shot. He knocked down all three free throws to give the Knicks the lead at 86-85.
Karl-Anthony Towns picked up his fifth foul with 1:53 left while defending 7-foot-5 Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs pushed the lead to 88-86 after Wemby made one of two free throws.
After Spurs rookie Dylan Harper tied the game at 88 with a short turnaround jumper in the paint, Brunson delivered a quick and decisive response on the next possession as he dribbled past Stephon Castle, who made him work for every shot in the series, with a floater from inside the dotted lines to give the Knicks the lead at 90-88 with 1:06 remaining in the game.
The Knicks never relinquished the lead. Brunson finished Game 5 making 14 of 27 shots from the field and four of seven 3-pointers. It was his fourth game with 30-plus points. No other Knick scored more than 14 points in Game 5, and only four tallied double figures.
“He is generationally great offensively,” Knicks guard Landry Shamet said of Brunson, the NBA’s clutch player of the year in 2025.
“There’s not a whole lot to say,” Shamet added. “We all saw it. He carried us in many different ways. What he does is not really a surprise to us anymore.”
When a reporter asked Brunson if he felt any added pressure to deliver a title to New York, he said there was “no pressure whatsoever.”
“I’ve described pressure in the past, my dad being on eight or nine unguaranteed contracts for his career,” Brunson said. “Not knowing whether he’ll get cut, when a team needs to move on from you while your family is on the East Coast or wherever you are in the country, that’s pressure.”
Jalen Brunson witnessed his dad, Rick, work out three times a day in the summertime and watched him push himself just to get a training camp call-up. He said that was real pressure.
“I’m very fortunate to be in the position I am, and I’d like to think I’ve worked pretty hard,” the 29-year-old Brunson said. “So when an opportunity presents itself like it did [in Game 5], I just trust my work. I’m never afraid to fail.”
Brunson has skyrocketed into the national consciousness this postseason after barely being a blip on the radar. The NBA is seeing historic viewership thanks to Brunson’s Knicks and Wemby’s Spurs. The Knicks-Spurs series averaged nearly 20 million viewers, the highest viewership in 28 years. The basketball world is now seeing what New York has known.
Euphoric New Yorkers flooded the streets to celebrate the Knicks’ historic moment, many of them chanting Brunson’s name. One New York superfan captured what many Knicks fans feel about their newest idol.
“Jalen Brunson is my doctor. He’s my engineer. He’s my mechanic. He’s my subway driver. He’s my pilot. He’s my dad,” the fan said.
“Everything I did was for Jalen Brunson.”
The Knicks had four winning seasons in a 21-year span before Brunson arrived. They’ve had four winning seasons since Brunson’s arrival. They’ve now won eight playoff series with Brunson in the lineup; they won seven series, total, from 1998 through 2022. With Brunson leading the way, the Knicks have been to two conference semifinals, two conference finals, and one NBA Finals.
After completing a season in which he led the Knicks to an NBA Cup title and the franchise’s first NBA title in five decades, it’s safe to say that Jalen Brunson has earned the title of KNY — King of New York.
Joel Huerto is editor and publisher of OneManFastBreak.net. He hosts a sports podcast on YouTube @onemanfastbreak1.