NBA Finals 2026: Is Knicks’ Jalen Brunson authoring the most clutch playoff run in NBA history?

A noted Major League Baseball sabermetrics publication once argued that clutch performances were a myth, before there were enough statistics to prove otherwise.

We always thought they existed, since we’d seen time and time again athletes come through when it mattered most, often more so than they did in less opportune times. It was not random. Instead, they summoned something within them under pressure.

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But we know New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson is clutch. Not just because we have seen it, game after game, year after year. Not just because he won the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year award in 2025. But because the numbers tell us he’s clutch.

“With the ball in his hands,” said teammate Karl-Anthony Towns, “I’m never surprised.”

Case in point: Brunson scored 13 of his game-high 30 points in the fourth quarter, including five back-breaking points in the final two minutes, of a 105-95 win over the San Antonio Spurs in Wednesday’s opener of the 2026 NBA Finals. The performance increased his clutch points total over the past four years to 144, more than anyone.

For his playoff career (82 games since the 2020-21 season), Brunson has averaged 1.47 points per minute in the clutch on 63.4% true shooting. By comparison, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 0.96 points per minute led this past year’s regular season on 66.5% true shooting.

Jalen Brunson somehow gets more efficient — and more prolific — as the game progresses.

(Ben Rohrbach)

Brunson is averaging 9.5 points per fourth quarter during New York’s dominant playoff run. Only five players in the play-by-play era (since 1996) have averaged more fourth-quarter points into the conference semifinals or beyond. One was Brunson in 2024, when he averaged 10.1 points per fourth quarter before a second-round defeat. The others: Dirk Nowitzki (9.9, 2011), LeBron James (9.8, 2006), Kobe Bryant (9.6, 2003) and Michael Jordan (9.6, 1997). Only Dirk and Jordan did it en route to an NBA Finals.

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Brunson is doing what only Nowitzki did on one of the most magical championship runs in NBA history and what MJ did on his way to the fifth of six titles….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/nba-finals-2026-is-knicks-jalen-brunson-authoring-the-most-clutch-playoff-run-in-nba-history-140720324.html

Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-06-05 14:07:00

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