NEW YORK — On the heels of more magic, a go-ahead jumper to lift the New York Knicks past the Atlanta Hawks in overtime with 11.1 seconds left Wednesday, Jalen Brunson was asked to find a memory stored away somewhere in his 28 years of existence.
Do you remember your first meaningful game-winning situation? Make or miss.
I wasn’t expecting much. Brunson, whose late-game heroics helped New York relax going into the All-Star break with a 149-148 victory, was preparing to leave. I figured I’d ask, though, and get a general response to tuck away and circle back to when his adrenaline diminished and was no longer clouding his brain.
As the question wrapped up, Brunson stared at the ground intensely as if sifting through every one of his basketball memories within the blink of an eye. Then he opened his mouth. That’s when I remembered who I was talking to.
“My sophomore year of high school, we played in a game where I didn’t shoot a shot confidently to win a game,” Brunson said. “My dad proceeded to send me clips of NBA players shooting with confidence, make or miss, at the end of games. I played in the Proviso West (Illinois) Holiday Tournament my sophomore year of high school. We played Hinsdale Central, and I made a game winner. That was like a week later. That’s the first of game-winner type things.
“So, yes, I remember.”
Jalen Brunson celebrates another game-winning shot. (Elsa / Getty Images)
Brunson has ripped many souls between that one in a suburban Chicago high school gym and Wednesday’s go-ahead shot against Atlanta. The latest, though, was just another reminder of how the Knicks’ All-Star guard lives for moments of heroics. How he oozes confidence in moments that strip many of it.
With the clock winding down and New York trailing by 1, Brunson danced with Hawks wing Dyson Daniels — who had been raising his own hell defensively on the guard in the moments leading up to the shot — while everyone else watched.
Through the legs, through the legs, hesi, through the legs, crossover, a hard dribble and then a pull-up with Daniels off-balance. Bottoms.
Brunson gyrates at his own rhythm in these situations. He shoots when he’s comfortable shooting, no matter the time. He’ll let a shot go a split second before most people would. It’s herky-jerky. It’s unpredictable.
“He has great balance and great footwork,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Brunson, who scored 36 points and had eight assists. “He’s not relying on athleticism. What he’s relying on is being savvy, and the herky-jerky can get a guy off-balance. He just needs a little space to get his shot off.”
When the Knicks need to maintain a lead late, the ball goes to Brunson. When the Knicks need to make a late push, the ball goes to Brunson. When the game can be decided by the flick of a wrist, it’s Brunson’s left wrist that is often making a gooseneck.
Brunson carries conviction in these instances because not doing so once as a high school sophomore had a lasting impact on him. But as time went on, he played in some of the biggest games college basketball has seen in the past 10 years. He has done it as a professional. The opportunities came knocking as Brunson advanced through his career, and that youthful fear of not being ready followed him along the way.
“What you see in a game, if you watch his individual workouts, these are things he practices,” Thibodeau said. “He does it over and over again. He’s not afraid and has a lot of courage.”
They say confidence breeds success, and it’s no coincidence that when the Knicks signed Brunson a few seasons back, the franchise started reaching heights it hadn’t in quite some time. There was a leader at the helm prepared to take on New York City and show that he could lead an organization at this level. Brunson was ready for the bright lights within the bright lights, immediately becoming the player who thrives in the game’s most tense moments.
Per NBA.com, in clutch situations this season (the NBA defines “clutch stats” as shots made when a game is within 5 points in the final five minutes of regulation or overtime), Brunson has been among the best in the league. He leads all players in field goal attempts per situation with 3.4 (minimum 10 “clutch” games played) and is third in field goal percentage (53.1), behind only Nikola Jokic and Jimmy Butler. No player averages more points in “clutch” moments than Brunson’s 5.3.
Thibodeau said he believes the “clutch gene” is real, though no doctors have ever found it. A select group of players rise to the occasion over and over again. That can’t be by happenstance. There has to be something to it.
“It’s what he does, man,” teammate Karl-Anthony Towns said after Brunson’s late-game dominance against the Toronto Raptors last week. “I get to watch the show on the court. That’s the best seat in the house.”
We all can point to something in our lives that aided in creating the person we are today. Brunson, the basketball player, goes back to a high school gym, where a moment of panic gave him a feeling he never wanted to feel again. In turn, he became a killer.
Brunson might not make every shot he takes with the game on the line, but he feels like he will. That’s half the battle in the ball going through the net or not. The other half is skill. Brunson has both.
Those players are the most dangerous.
(Top photo of the game-winning shot: Elsa / Getty Images)
