The Wizard of Oz

A look back at the year that was for Jalen Brunson.

Good morning! That was quite a Saturday showdown in Washington DC with a rematch on tap tonight. Tipoff is at 7pm and I’ll be on halftime for all who want to say hi. For the Knicks, Jalen Brunson is again QUESTIONABLE, while Jordan Poole carries the same designation for Washington. Kyle Kuzma is slated to play his first game in over a month.

Standings update: Boston lost yesterday and is now just one game ahead of New York in second place. They face Toronto at home tomorrow night.

Let’s get to it…

Game 32: Knicks 136, Wiz 132 (OT)

• The Knicks came out looking every bit like a team on the second night of a back to back, while the Wizards shot the lights out for 48 minutes¹.

• New York overcame an early nine-point hole and then dug out of an 11-point deficit late in the third, but still found themselves down five with under a minute remaining. Jalen Brunson scored six in the final 57 seconds to send it to OT.

• The Knicks were mostly in control throughout the extra period, although two turnovers in the final 47 seconds made things dicier than they should have been.

• Precious Achiuwa made his pitch for Dunk of the Year.

• Justin Champagnie had the game of his life against his hometown team.

• Thibs again shortened the rotation after halftime.

What a difference a year can make.

Rewind the clock back 365 days. The Knicks were about to suffer their third straight loss, 140-126 against the Indiana Pacers. They could be excused from the poor showing, partially because they were on the second night of a back to back, but mostly because they had just six rotation players available, what with Quentin Grimes on the shelf and RJ Barrett & Immanuel Quickley having just been shipped off to Toronto.

Still, the loss put them in a bit of a tricky spot.

Here was Leon Rose, trading away two of the organization’s five most notable draft picks since Patrick Ewing for a wing player who profiled as the final piece to a championship puzzle.

There was only one problem: the Knicks didn’t appear to be a single puzzle piece away from contention. Maybe not even a few pieces away.

By the time the trade became official, they sat with a record of 17-15, stuck in eighth place in a conference where seven teams weren’t totally trying to win. Even if their net rating was solid (12th best in the NBA at the time), they had neither an elite offense nor an elite defense. More than that, in a league where stars dictated titles, one of their co-leads was as enigmatic as he was talented while the other had never even made an All-Star team and was no lock to make his first one in a few months.

Julius Randle’s issues, of course, were well documented. But where Jalen Brunson was concerned, it was at least fair to raise the question: for as much of a godsend as his arrival was, how high could the Knicks really soar if he was their best player?

That wasn’t just recency bias, skewed by Brunson’s 22-for-56 showing across that three-game losing streak. The Pacers game on December 30, 2023 was Brunson’s 100th regular season game as a Knick. Over that time, the team was a solid but wholly unspectacular 57-43 in the games he playerd - roughly a 47-win clip over 82 games. That’s a mighty fine pace compared to other Knick teams of recent vintage, but was it worth the investment the organization was clearly making in him with this trade?

On one hand, they sent out Barrett, the original prince that was promised, because they had one too many players who functioned best with the ball in their hands. On the other hand, they dealt Quickley in large part because they were unwilling to expend so much of their financial bandwidth on two players who essentially played the same position.

In OG Anunoby, they brought in the sort of defensive cover-all you go and get if you’re planning to build your roster around an undersized guard who needs as much help as he can get on the defensive end.

In no uncertain terms, the trade that upended life as we knew it as Knick fans was all about Jalen Brunson. Now all he needed to do was live up to that promise.

You think he took that challenge personally?

As my Knicks newsletter compatriot Tommy Beer pointed out yesterday, barring either Brunson sitting out the final game of the calendar year or SGA going 1962 Wilt on Minnesota tomorrow night, New York will almost certainly have the league’s leading scorer from January 1 to December 30 in the year of our Lord - Jalen Brunson is indeed his name - 2024.

And the wildest part of all this?

It doesn’t even seem like a big deal.

Brunson’s excellence has become second nature to our existence as Knick fans. He is New York pizza: consistently incredible yet not worth fawning over because it is so readily accessible.

But even the foremost metropolitan sauce connoisseur will stop and appreciate the first bite of a truly special slice. On Saturday night, Brunson pulled a pie out of the oven with an aroma that could fill an arena.

As someone who’s had a few decent slices in my day, if I had to compare JB’s double nickel to one New York joint, it would have to be a personal favorite of mine, L&B Spumoni Gardens.

I’m hungry

For the unfamiliar, L&B specializes in Sicilian pies, but not like any you’ve had before. They are at once both hearty and airy, with succulent sauce and gooey mozz that rests on a pillowy cloud of dough. The laws of physics cease to exist in their ovens.

This was Brunson on Saturday night. With a 3-pointer that wasn’t falling, his performance was workmanlike, featuring 15 makes from inside the arc and another 16 from the free throw line. At the same time, there was a finesse about everything he did, and never more so than his final two buckets in regulation.

The first one, seen here, was a nifty little combo of artistry and skill.

Brunson knew he had to get both the hoop and the harm. Like a trial lawyer whose case hinges on cracking a witness in cross examination, he baited his prey until he had Champagnie right where he wanted him.

After the whistle blew, you can see Brunson hang an extra half second in midair to make sure he put just the right amount of lift on the ball. It doesn’t get any more boss than that.

Not that the game-tier was too shabby:

Brunson ended up with 55 on the game, which isn’t quite as impressive as it used to be considering nearly half of the league’s 134 games of 55 or more have occurred in the last decade.

But that’s before you consider this little nugget: of the 60 games of 55 or more from the last 10 years, only 14 have been achieved by a player who made three or fewer 3-point field goals. Of those 14, only three have been done by guards: Russ in 2017, Luka against the Knicks in 2022, and Brunson over the weekend.

Unlike Doncic, Jalen Brunson is not a 230-pound slab of Slovenian beef, and unlike Westbrook, he isn’t a physical freak in the traditional sense.

What he is, though, is the most determined individual currently playing in the NBA.

One 60-point game, one 50-point game, a dozen 40-point games, and thirty 30-point games, all in the last calendar year.

Never in the history of New York sports has a player paid off his organization’s faith in him quite like this diminutive dynamo. Brunson has played 92 games between the regular season and playoffs since the Anunoby trade and the Knicks have a 61-31 record in those contests. They are a full fledged title contender, and the biggest reason why is Brunson, who put on his cape and rescued a win on a night when his team didn’t have it.

Those nights happen from time to time in the 82-game slog that is the NBA regular season. Most times, you accept the L and move on.

If only Jalen Brunson knew how.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Josh Hart: The guy doesn’t take days off.

He ended up with a very Hart-like 13, 11 & 7. In addition to scoring four of the first six points in overtime, Josh had five boards in the extra period alone.

Now he just needs to score 40 in a game and the infinity gauntlet will be complete.

⭐️ ⭐️ Karl-Anthony Towns: It’ll become a footnote to Brunson’s performance, but KAT scoring 10 straight Knick points in the fourth quarter - the first eight of which came with JB on the bench - felt positively massive in the moment.

Speaking of things we’re already used to ‘round these parts,, Towns ended up with a tidy 30 & 14 on 19 shots and it felt like another day at the office. Yes, New York had their defensive woes, but unlike some other games, those ills were at least as much if not more on the players around him than on KAT himself.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: A double nickel and he was a game time decision.

Final Thought

Willis Reed. Clyde Frazier. Dave DeBusschere. Patrick Ewing. Carmelo Anthony.

Five of the 75 greatest players of all time who spent all or most of their primes in a Knick uniform. None of them had as many 50-burgers wearing “NEW YORK” across their chest as Brunson has in a little less than two and a half seasons.

We are witnessing greatness at its finest.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. Washington had been 4-3 before Saturday in games where they hit at least 39 percent from deep. They are now 4-4.