King of New York: Jalen Brunson has led the Knicks back to the NBA Finals. And he’s not done yet

CLEVELAND — There would be no late-game heroics on Monday night. No pivoting, feinting and head-and-shoulder-shimmying his way into a fraction of a sliver of space — just enough to unfurl a feathery off-balance floater.

No hunting his preferred quarry in the pick-and-roll without compunction or remorse, again and again, to carry his team out of a fourth-quarter deficit. No pulled-from-your-wildest-childhood-dreams fadeaway jumpers over two outstretched hands with the clock draining down to zero.

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Jalen Brunson wasn’t on the court to deliver in crunch time on Monday night — he watched the entire fourth quarter from the bench, actually — because there was no crunch time for him to dominate in Game 4 in Cleveland, which the Knicks won by 37. Just like there wasn’t in Game 4 in Philadelphia, which the Knicks won by 30. Or in Game 6 in Atlanta, which the Knicks won by 51.

There was no crunch time for him to dominate because when the 2025-26 New York Knicks see an opening to exploit, they don’t hesitate to hammer it, and when they have the opportunity to go for the throat, they seize it. They behave that way because attitude reflects leadership, and because Jalen Brunson — measured and unassuming with the media, king of the anodyne quote — is a stone-cold killer between those four lines.

This team follows his lead. He has now led the Knicks farther than anybody has in this millennium: to the NBA Finals. And he’s not done yet.

After the Knicks wrapped up their second consecutive sweep and their 11th straight playoff victory, Brunson was named the Most Valuable Player of the Eastern Conference finals in a unanimous vote, after averaging 25.5 points and 7.8 assists in 39.6 minutes per game, shooting 48.6% from the floor in the series. (Full disclosure: I was one of the voters.)

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“What a wild surprise,” a smiling Karl-Anthony Towns joked during his postgame press conference. (For what it’s worth, Towns — who averaged 15.8 points on 54/50/83 shooting splits to go with 12.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game, and finished a series-high plus-79 — had…

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Author : Dan Devine

Publish date : 2026-05-26 06:54:00

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