Is winning an NBA title with your dad the ultimate Father’s Day gift?
That’s the question Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and his father, former NBA player and current Knicks assistant coach Rick Brunson, will likely have to answer after Jalen’s triumph last Saturday. The younger Brunson captured Finals MVP after the Knicks 4-1 series victory over the San Antonio Spurs, dropping 45 points in Game 5.
Only Michael Jordan has ever scored more points in a Finals-clinching game on the road.
The journey for both Rick and Jalen began when Jalen, at just under three years old, ran around the Knicks’ locker room as they tried to end a then-26-year drought in winning an NBA title in 1999. Rick Brunson was a reserve guard on that Knicks team, which lost to the Spurs in five games.
27 years later, the Brunsons closed the loop on one chapter of their family’s basketball life.
It also let New York exhale 53 years of waiting, of torment and agony as a fan base that once again wanted to get to the mountaintop.
Throughout the NBA playoffs, a video of a 12-year-old Jalen being trained by his dad was routinely used in clips highlighting their relationship. Rick was a stern, yet understanding father who wanted his son to be unflappable and aware of what it took to make it to the NBA. The night the Knicks won it all, the two were captured in a tearful embrace along the baseline, years of hard work and sacrifice finally culminating in their ultimate goal.
The night was even more special. As the clock struck midnight, the elder Brunson officially turned 54. His son, who doesn’t turn 30 until August, grabbed a champagne bottle and warned everyone in the bowels of the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio that if they didn’t want to get wet, move out of the way.
“For New York!” Jalen exclaimed before uncorking the bottle and spraying his dad in celebration.
From parks to gyms, driveways to arenas, the Brunsons represent a father-son story anyone can look up to. Even when Rick proclaimed he couldn’t foresee Jalen becoming Finals MVP, King of New York, the One Who Helped End The Drought, he couldn’t help but love his son, even as they had playful father-son banter.
“The way he carries himself,” Rick Brunson told the “Inside The NBA” crew about what he loves most about Jalen. “The leadership. He keeps all the noise outside, and he goes out there and does his job. It’s crazy for me.”
Jalen countered, “What he instilled in me as a kid, you never know what’s going to happen if you just continue to work hard. You never know when you focus on winning, you’re not focused on yourself, you’re not focused on the individual accolades you can get. He instilled that in me. If we win? Everyone eats. It’s how he and my mom raised me.”
