SAN ANTONIO — Even Walt Frazier thought Jalen Brunson was done, cooked, out of Game 1 of the NBA Finals for keeps.
Yes, the same Frazier who once watched the New York Knicks’ captain, Willis Reed, hobble out the Game 7 tunnel in Madison Square Garden, with one leg all torn up, and used that source of inspiration to torch the Los Angeles Lakers with 36 points and 19 assists to win the 1970 NBA championship.
Yes, that same guy thought the current Knicks captain was calling it a night before playing even one full quarter of his first career finals game.
“He had his poor shooting and he was hobbling around, went to the locker room. I counted him out, man,” Frazier told The Athletic. “I thought, ‘He’s not coming back.’ And all of a sudden he got a second wind.
“That’s why he’s the reigning Mr. Clutch. And that’s why this team is where they are.”
That’s why the Knicks erased a 14-point third-quarter deficit Wednesday night and beat the San Antonio Spurs 105-95 for their 12th consecutive postseason victory, tied for the second-longest streak in NBA history with the 1999 Spurs, who beat the Knicks the last time they reached the finals.
Dressed in all his sartorial splendor, the 81-year-old Frazier, immortal point guard of the immortal Knicks title teams of ’70 and ’73, stood in the bowels of Frost Bank Center in awe of his team’s incumbent 29-year-old point guard. Brunson limped out of the game late in the first quarter after teammate Landry Shamet blasted San Antonio’s Harrison Barnes into his right knee. The Knicks staffers around Brunson on his hobble to the locker room looked about as concerned as Frazier sounded.
Brunson returned only to have the Spurs’ Luke Kornet step on his left ankle in the middle of the second quarter, after the Knicks’ superstar crash-landed on a made basket. From his rump on the baseline, Brunson waved in frustration at referee Scott Foster. Soon enough, a captain who screams at refs about as often as another New York captain, Derek Jeter, used to scream at umps, was seen angrily shouting at Foster, “That’s a f—ing foul.”
Most of the night was a struggle for Brunson, even after he opened the scoring by knocking down a 3. At one point, he was 5-for-18 from the floor. It almost seemed like he was feeling the burden of the franchise’s 53-year title drought and 27-year wait between trips to the championship round.
And feeling the endlessly long shadow of Victor Wembanyama on his excursions into the lane.
But then, on cue, Brunson was making plays all over the court, driving to the basket without any fear of the lurking Wemby while the invading army of Knicks fans once again cloned the Garden on the road. In the closing minutes, Brunson kept alive a New York miss and immediately got the ball back in the corner for a 3 that gave his team the lead.
He delivered the dagger with 37.8 seconds to go, using an unreal series of dance moves on Devin Vassell followed by a floater that put the Knicks up by six. When it was all over, Brunson went right over to the ref, Foster, and started working him for Game 2.
“He’s got the tenacity of Willis Reed,” said Frazier, “and he’s got my cool.”
What more was there to say than that?
Actually, another legendary guard with a Knicks past had something to say about the increasingly absurd debate over whether a small player — in this case Brunson — can be the lead superstar on a championship team in a big man’s sport.
Isiah Thomas, two-time champ with the Detroit Pistons, and Steph Curry, four-time champ with the Warriors (and two-time champ without Kevin Durant), may represent the beginning and the end of the list of small franchise players who pulled it off in the modern NBA age. And Thomas, a former Knicks president and coach in much less prosperous times, firmly believes Brunson will join that list.
“Jalen is absolutely good enough to win it all,” Thomas said before Game 1. “As small players, we tend to get overlooked even though we’re always beating bigger players. In people’s minds there seems to be some height and weight requirement to win a championship. Jalen won (an Illinois) state title in high school. He won two national titles in college, and now he’s in the NBA Finals. He’s just a winner.
“People say, ‘Well, Jalen’s not as good as this one or that one,’ but when you put him between the lines with those guys, his teams win and those guys’ teams lose. What the hell are we doubting Jalen for? People say he doesn’t have the height or body type, but he beats all the people who do have those things.”
The 6-foot-2 Brunson finished with 13 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter and outplayed the 7-foot-4 Wembanyama, who presented a challenge to the point guard that brought back memories of the big men Thomas had to confront in the paint in his day.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Robert Parish. Ralph Sampson. Hakeem Olajuwon. Kevin McHale.
“But nobody in my lifetime ever had to face a person like Jalen has to face in Wemby,” Thomas said. “Wemby is such a unique talent that the entire basketball community is trying to figure out what his weaknesses are. With big shot blockers, you have to shoot it earlier, shoot it before they get there, and shoot it higher.
“Jalen can do that against Wemby because he can play and score from anywhere. He’s got the footwork and he can play inside, mid-range, from the 3-point line. Jalen has got it all. He’s the total package, and he can neutralize people who are bigger than him.”
That’s exactly what Brunson did Wednesday night, leaving Wembanyama shaking his head after Game 1 as he made his way to his locker room.
And leaving Frazier shaking his head, too.
“Jalen kept struggling through it, and you could see he was hurting,” he said. “Kudos to the coach for keeping him out there and thinking Jalen can still get it back.
“I just think it’s a season of destiny for them now. Everything is falling into place.”
Jalen Brunson is the reason the New York Knicks have forgotten how to lose. He proves every night that a small guard can be a franchise player on a championship team.
A small guard with Willis Reed’s tenacity and Walt Frazier’s cool.
