Jalen Brunson called his own shot, just like the NBA’s reigning Clutch Player of the Year should.
It’s a right reserved for the elite of the elite, the cream of the crop who own carte blanche to override a play call drawn up by the coaching staff. Mike Brown’s assistant coach Chris Jent drew up a play on the Knicks’ final offensive possession, facing a two-point deficit with mere seconds on the clock in Thursday’s matchup against the Indiana Pacers. Brown blew a timeout, and Jent drew up a second play.
Brunson decided to call his own number.
“As Jalen’s walking out on the floor, Jalen turns to me, he says, ‘I’m getting this win. I’m going for it,’” Brown recalled after the game. “I said, ‘You do you. That’s who you are. You do you.’ And he went out and he came through. That’s what real MVPs do and I’m glad I’m a part of his team.”
The rest is history. Brunson missed 11 of his first 19 shots and turned the ball over three times in New York’s first game out of the NBA Cup, a game Karl-Anthony Towns, Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hart joined Miles McBride and Landry Shamet on the injury report. He went on to make a turnaround 12-footer to bring the Knicks within one, then sealed the deal with a side-step three to lift the Knicks to a 114-113 win over the Pacers on Thursday.
“Our MVP,” said Brown. “The league’s MVP, Jalen Brunson.”
Brunson, however, is unlikely to win Clutch Player of the Year for a second season in a row — because the Knicks are finding themselves in fewer clutch situations to start the season.
That could change as the schedule stiffens entering the new calendar year. But as of Friday afternoon, no Knicks player ranked in the top-50 of total clutch points scored this season, with Detroit’s Cade Cunningham and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander tied with 91 crunch-time points scored apiece. Last season, Brunson finished second in total clutch points scored (156), one point shy of Anthony Edwards’ league-leading mark in Minnesota and four points ahead of Atlanta’s Trae Young, and he led the league with 5.6 clutch points scored per game over 28 games that boasted a five-point margin in the final five minutes of regulation or overtime.
This season, Brunson has appeared in eight such clutch games, but he is averaging just 1.4 points on 27.3% shooting and 33% shooting from three-points range in those clutch minutes. The Knicks are 4-4 in crunch time this season against their 18-12 clutch record last year.
“It’s a hard league, and it’s a hard league to score in,” said Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle. “And it’s a hard league to score in crunch time. It’s like the red zone in football.”
MO’S MOMENT
Brown said he would have sent rookie Mohamed Diawara to the G-League to get some minutes on the court, but with a shorthanded roster, he instead chose to start the 51st pick from France against the Pacers on Thursday.
“I decided to do it yesterday as soon as I knew guys were gonna be out, I was gonna start him. For a young guy, he’s got a really good feel, he’s gonna be a rally good player in this league,” the Knicks coach said. “He’s just so young right now. He just needs minutes, and it’s hard ‘cause we’ve had a lot of injuries. I wanna send him to the G-League but we just don’t have enough bodies up here. Any time I can find tine for him on the floor, I’m gonna try to do it because he has a chance to be really good in this league.”
Diawara finished with five points, three rebounds, an assist and a steal in 19 minutes in Indiana and showed his defensive versatility as a 6-foot-9 wing with a 7-foot-4 wingspan and a 9-foot-2 standing reach.
“You talk about a young guy who really hasn’t played a ton throughout the course of a season. He was extremely impactful for a young guy,” said Brown. “We put him on a lot of different bodies. He had a little tough time with [Pacers All-Star Pascal] Siakam, which is understandable, but he was able to guard most guys out on the floor, he made great plays, and you could feel his length out there defensively and his ability to get after loose balls and get out in transition. All the little things we’re looking for guys to do he does at a high level and it usually doesn’t show in the stats sheet but you can see it with your eye.”
