With all his success in his two seasons with the Knicks — with the ascension into NYC’s consciousness as a bona fide star — it’s the biggest failure that sticks with Jalen Brunson.
“A lot more than you would think,” he said.
Brunson dragged the Knicks through last year’s second-round series against the Heat.
Carried the team on his back.
But trailing by two in the final seconds of elimination Game 6, he threw an errant pass into traffic — committing the costly turnover — and spent an offseason stewing.
“We are in a position where we could have forced the Game 7,” Brunson said, “and I made a terrible decision.
“And I had to live with that throughout the whole summer.”
Few fans, if any, hold that play over Brunson.
In Knicks lore, the turnover doesn’t crack the list of top choke jobs.
It’s definitely below, for instance, Charles Smith under the basket, John Starks’ 2-for-18 in Game 7, Patrick Ewing’s blown finger roll, Carmelo Anthony’s getting rejected by Roy Hibbert and all of Julius Randle’s series.
But in Brunson’s own mind, he committed a catastrophic wrong in Miami.
And finally, it’s time for redemption with Game 1 on Saturday against the Sixers.
“I’ve grown to realize that to be able to be the best player you can be, you need to be able to read situations at a high level at all times. You can’t be flustered when there’s a certain amount of ticks on the clock and you’re down that many points, and stuff like that,” Brunson said. “I think I learned that last year in Game 6 when it really mattered, and I didn’t show up. It’s always a learning process.”
Brunson, it should be noted, scored 41 of his team’s 92 points in that Miami defeat on May 12.
He was the best player on either side.
But his internalizing of that play and focus on failure helps explain why Brunson keeps bursting through ceilings.
From his high school championship to two NCAA titles to his elevation in the playoffs — where Brunson experienced his breakthrough with the Mavericks in 2022 and followed up with excellence last year — there’s a clear comfort in the “big moment.”
“He’s been in a lot,” Tom Thibodeau said. “And I think he’s shown how well he handles those moments. He has the unique ability to go up a level. So that’s what makes him who he is. I think each experience teaches him something. And I think he’s grown, he continues to grow. I think all the things he’s done is part of his development.”
Brunson, always reluctant to toot his own horn, denied he has the “clutch gene” but also knows exactly what it is.
“It’s a thing, for sure. Some people are born with it, some people work for it,” Brunson said. “It comes with your confidence, it comes with your work ethic, it comes with being able to breathe and have that moment of not being flustered.
“A lot of things go into that.”
Brunson looked a little flustered during that fateful play against the Heat nearly a year ago.
He picked up his dribble in a bad position — surrounded by two Heat defenders — and shoveled a pass to the wrong team.
Josh Hart was wide open at the top of the key and didn’t let Brunson forget about it.
The point is to remember and get better because there’s a good chance Brunson will have the ball with a playoff game on the line.
“The way my college career ended, I think I lost the ball or got stripped, and we lost, and that’s how my college career ended. [Brunson] said he was open,” Hart said. “And then last year, it was the other way around. So sometimes we talk about it, but that’s something I know he thinks about. Whenever you lose to a team, you think about everything. … So all we thought about this summer was what we could have done against Miami to move on.
“That’s what we’ve got to fuel us to now in terms of what can we do better against Philly to move on.”
