Guano wrote:SelbyCobra wrote:KnicksGod wrote:Even if JB is not having a very good game, like last night, I think he puts a lot of mental pressure on a team to avoid getting into a close game with him.
Meaning, Boston has it in the back of their mind that they better hold onto a comfortable lead or Brunson can close it. Puts extra weight on them, thereby prompting a choke.
This is the exact description of how it felt as a Knicks fan playing against Jordan in the 90s. EXACT. Like, halfway through reading it I couldn't even tell you were posting about Brunson anymore because my MJ PTSD kicked in.
Crazy the Knicks have a guy that can show up similarly.
Where would we even rank Brunsons contribution in that game 2 win. Not that I really care to get in the nuance of ranking credit. It was a complete team win and everyone had key contributions. Hell deuce hit some clutch buckets on that run. Its just wild that we're up 2 and we haven't needed Brunson to be Brunson.
I don't know man, I can't even talk about this stuff at this point. This playoff high is so 90s to me, it's a euphoria I haven't felt in nearly 3 decades - being in series with GREAT teams and emerging victorious, sometimes as underdogs, from individual battles. But those 90s highs also came with catastrophic crashes when wars were lost in the end.
The one nuance I keep reminding myself of though is simply that we actually have a GUY this time around. Jalen Brunson being one of the most capable and reliable closers in the NBA - a game-warping player that can take over and control games against the best teams, defenders, coaches, in the playoffs, in the 4th quarter, at the most highly pressurized moments in the game. So much of these first two rounds feels the same as the mid 90s to me in terms of the euphoria, the jubilation, and the giddiness, but with that recall also comes the memory of the pain. We were always waiting for Jordan to grab the game by the neck at the end, because as wonderful a player as Pat was, that wasn't reliably part of his bag. Starks wanted to be that guy, and had the stomach for it, but he didn't have the actual skill to be it. In the late 90s Houston and Spree had varying pieces of the closer/finisher composition, but neither was actually fully formed in that regard. We could get up, feel good, but then have it ripped away in a fairly predictable manner.
Jalen is legitimately one of the elite in the NBA at it - a true boogeyman to other teams - and I'm hoping that's the difference now. That's the only nuance I can focus on at this point.
