Brunson and the Knicks are the best sports show in town
It didn’t take the kind of beatdown they gave to the Celtics on Thursday night to make it official that this has become one of the most appealing Knick teams of all time. They have been moving up on that for a while, even with all the injuries they’ve had to overcome. All they did on Thursday was make it even more official about their appeal than it already was, and whatever happens from here.
They have made themselves into that kind of feel-good story, the kind of big, surprise story that we are always looking for in sports. They weren’t supposed to become what they’ve become, especially once they lost Julius Randle for the season, whether we knew he was gone for good when he landed wrong on his shoulder or not. They weren’t supposed to be this kind of team, the way Jalen Brunson wasn’t supposed to become the kind of full-fledged and in-lights NBA star.
Brunson is a total star as a point guard in what is still a point-guard city. He has become the best point guard the Knicks have had since Walt (Clyde) Frazier. And he is now, at 27, in the process of having one of the best individual seasons any Knick has ever had, at any position. Knick fans know that if he hadn’t elevated his own game and his team the way he has, that team would soon be looking at play-in games.
Here is a real nice frame of reference for where Brunson, who was supposed to be Randle’s wing man when he got here from Dallas, ranks with the best Knick scorers for a single season: 1. Bernard King (1984-85): 32.9 2. Richie Guerin (1961-62): 29.5 3. Carmelo Anthony (2012-13): 28.7
4. Patrick Ewing (1989-90): 28.6 5. Jalen Brunson (2023-24): 28.6 6. Carmelo Anthony (2013-14): 27.4
7. Patrick Ewing (1990-91): 26.6 8. Bob McAdoo (1977-78): 26.5 9. Bernard King (1983-84): 26.3 10. Amar’e Stoudemire (2010-11): 25.
We have all seen what he’s done lately, when the late-season games have mattered the most. When it looked as if there was a chance that the Knicks could drop in the standings, Brunson has risen up again, and made sure that the Knicks rose up with him. Say it again: He won’t win the MVP award this season, but he is every bit as valuable to the Knicks as Nikola Jokic — as much The Man in Denver as ever before — has been to the Nuggets or Luka Doncic, his old teammate, has been to the Mavericks.
Through Thursday night he had scored at least 35 points in five straight games. He had scored more than 30 in seven of his last eight games. He has averaged 38.5 in the run he is having, and has shot better than 50%.
“He has been the best player in the Eastern Conference by far,” an old Archbishop Molloy guard named Kenny Smith said the other night on “Inside the NBA.”
Brunson, of course, addressed another loud night from him in his predictably quiet and understated way after the Knicks had put it on the Celtics the way they had.
“We made shots and made the right plays,” he said. “Obviously, we know they’re the top dog in the East. Whenever you play against them, it’s always a good measuring stick to see where you’re at. We played pretty well, but we know what they’re capable of doing. We just had their number tonight.”
He had the numbers again, 39 points this time, in just 30 minutes. The Knicks continued to be the most fun sports story in town, as well as the Rangers have played this season and as well as the Yankees have played in the early innings of the baseball season. They lost Randle for good. They lost OG Anonoby, with whom they played their best ball of the season after he got here from Toronto, for a good chunk of time. They lost Mitchell Robinson. Isaiah Hartenstein has missed some games. Josh Hart has been overworked, constantly. But when these Knicks had to show up in April, they did, with a hard eye on May and June.
This is the kind of fun we had exactly 25 years ago, when the Knicks came from the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference and ended up making it all the way to the NBA Finals, beating Coach Riley and the Heat in the first round that year, beating them in a most memorable Game 5 when Allan Houston made a runner at the end. That was not supposed to happen, either. The best stories never are.
I’ve thought for a long time, and haven’t been alone in that thought, that the Knicks needed a big player to be a big team again. Only now Brunson, at 6-2, a New York City point guard just because he grew up at the Garden when his dad was a Knick, has
become as big a player as there is in the league.
The Knicks have done a little bit of everything this season, and now they have finally beaten the Celtics, the best regular-season team in the whole league. Even without Randle, the sides finally looked even. Only they weren’t even on this night, because even with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown on the other team, Brunson was the best player in the gym. By a lot.
“It’s special,” Anunoby said of Brunson when the game was over. “The way he plays, the things he can do, it’s definitely special. He’s one of the best in the league. He’s playing like an MVP. He should win MVP.”
He won’t win it. The Knicks might not have enough behind Brunson to make a deep run in the postseason, as much as they keep trying to convince us to believe our eyes and think they can. But they aren’t just the best team since Jeff Van Gundy was still the coach and Tom Thibodeau was sitting next to him on the bench. They have just become the best show in town, which is why the fans and the Garden have come to them W the way they have. e all know the old line in New York about how the baseball season didn’t start, not really, until the Knicks stopped, and that means even when Joe Torre’s Yankees were still great. It might be that way again this spring. The Celtics are still loaded. Even after Thursday night, the Bucks were still ahead of the Knicks. Joel Embiid is back, wherever the 76ers are in the standings. And the Heat, well, you know.
It doesn’t change who the Knicks are, and what they have done to here, sometimes against pretty serious odds. When the playoffs do begin, that sound you will be hearing is the sound once known as the Monster of Madison Square Garden. This time of year. That sound. You remember.