Jalen Brunson was honored for being clutch. Then he was stuck watching the Knicks lose late.
Brunson could not re-enter for the stretch run, when he so often thrives. It cost the Knicks the opportunity to close out this series, which shifts to Detroit for Game 6.
NEW YORK — Jalen Brunson stepped to center court before Tuesday’s tipoff and hoisted the Jerry West Trophy, the honor given to the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year.
Yet with an opportunity for the New York Knicks to close out their first-round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons, the All-NBA point guard was stuck at the scorer’s table as the crunch-time seconds ticked.
After Brunson briefly left the floor with 2 minutes, 57 seconds remaining because he appeared to aggravate his right ankle injury, there was no organic stoppage in play for the next 150 seconds of game action. And next to Brunson was fellow “‘Nova Knick” Josh Hart, who had also departed the game at the same time — and temporarily went back to the locker room — with wrist and back issues after taking a hard fall.
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The result without those two Knicks standouts? They stumbled down the stretch of a 106-103 loss, sending the series back to Detroit for Thursday’s Game 6.
“Obviously, that’s tough,” Hart said after finishing with 15 points, seven rebounds, and six assists. “You want to be out there. But we had good looks. I trust my guys. We had a couple good shots to cut that lead. They just didn’t go in. It’s basketball. It happens.”
When Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau was asked why he did not take more deliberate steps to get Brunson — who totaled a series-low 16 points and seven assists — and Hart back in the game, he called it a “coach’s decision” because of “just where we were at with our timeouts” (they had one remaining). When asked why they did not foul, even while already in the penalty, to stop the clock, Thibodeau repeated, “coach’s decision.” And when asked to elaborate more on what he weighs in such a scenario, Thibodeau said, “You look at the time, score, penalty, timeouts, all of the above. What’s happening in the game. The next possession.”
“There’s a lot that goes into it,” he added.
By the time Brunson and Hart did return, New York had come up empty on four of its five previous offensive possessions and trailed by six points with 27.4 seconds to go.
Brunson did immediately deliver an inbound pass to the other ‘Nova Knick, Mikal Bridges, who turned and drained a corner three-pointer to cut the Pistons’ lead in half. Brunson also nearly created a turnover when he deflected a Detroit inbounds pass away, but could not knock it off a Piston. And after Knicks teammate OG Anunoby connected on a semi-desperation pull-up three to cut Detroit’s lead to one with 5.7 seconds to go, the Pistons’ Cade Cunningham made both free throws. New York’s Miles McBride was then intentionally fouled to prevent a clean three-point look and missed both free-throw attempts. The Knicks could not secure the tip-out in time for a final try from beyond the arc.
Not having Hart and Brunson on the floor for the bulk of the stretch run was a massive disadvantage — even on a night when the Knicks offense was clunky and Brunson self-assessed that he “didn’t make good decisions, personally” while going 4-for-16 from the floor.
Still, Brunson constantly orchestrates — and manipulates — with the ball in his hands. Hart is a master at hustle plays and offensive rebounds, and a complementary distributor. Those traits often decide down-to-the-wire playoff games, especially while facing a Pistons team with several young players going through their first postseason experience.
Brunson was formally recognized last week for his success in clutch minutes — which the NBA defines as games with a scoring margin of five points or less, in the final five minutes — via an award created in 2023 that is voted on by a media panel following nominations by the league’s head coaches. During the regular season, Brunson scored 156 clutch points, ranking second in the NBA according to its tracking data. He shot 51.5% from the floor during that stretch in games. His 28 assists in such minutes ranked third in the league.
“Oftentimes, you say he has poise under pressure and he has confidence,” Thibodeau said of Brunson before last week’s Game 2. “So where do those things come from? And you understand that it comes from his preparation, right? Obviously you have to have great talent. But because of the way he prepares himself, when he’s in those situations, he’s very confident because of the work he puts into it.”
And before Tuesday, Brunson’s late-game heroics had carried over to the playoffs. He scored at least 12 points in the final frame in each of this series’ first four games. Those outbursts helped the Knicks rip off a 21-0 run to flip Game 1, and squeak out victories in Games 3 and 4 inside Detroit’s hostile Little Caesars Arena.
When asked following Game 3 if he had heard Pistons fans booing Brunson, Thibodeau quipped that, “to Jalen, those are cheers. He lives for that stuff.” And ahead of Game 5, a Nike digital billboard advertisement at Manhattan’s intersection of 34th and 7th featured Brunson and the message, “When the game’s on the line, so is my name.”
Those fourth-quarter performances fueled Brunson to total at least 30 points and seven assists in all of the series’ first four games — even while clearly still managing an ankle injury that sidelined him for about a month late in the regular season.
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Brunson went back to the locker room to change shoes during Game 1, though Thibodeau quipped that his point guard actually departed to “grab his cape.” Brunson left the bench again during Game 2 to go to “the back and [do] some things, and then I came back ready to go.” He also left Game 4 in Detroit, before his fourth-quarter magic helped push the Knicks’ series lead to 3-1. Tuesday night, he stayed near the bench after the ankle tweak, crouched over and in pain.
But then Brunson could not reenter for the stretch run, when he so often thrives. It cost the Knicks the opportunity to close out this series in a home Game 5.
“It’s tough,” Brunson said, “but I have the utmost faith, regardless of the result, in my teammates. Whoever is out there, trust, faith, belief, all that, I’ll always have that with my teammates.”