GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Ahead of the Knicks‘ playoff opener Saturday night at Madison Square Garden against the Philadelphia 76ers, star Jalen Brunson admitted he spent all summer thinking about his turnover in the closing moments of New York’s Game 6 loss to the Miami Heat last spring.
“A lot more than you would think,” Brunson said, when asked how much he has thought about that turnover, which came with under 20 seconds to go in the game and New York trailing by two.
Rather than getting up a potential game-tying — or go-ahead — shot, Brunson got stuck in a double-team on the baseline and wound up trying to force a pass to a cutting Julius Randle coming down the lane, which was stolen by Miami. And, instead of New York possibly sending the series back to The World’s Most Famous Arena for Game 7 and a chance to make a trip to the Eastern Conference finals, New York’s season ended.
“We are in a position where we could have forced the Game 7, and I made a terrible decision and I had to live with that throughout the whole summer,” Brunson said.
“When I’m working out, I’m focusing on whatever I’m doing at that time, but that moment creeps back in your mind. You see it all over social media … it’s impossible not to see things like that.”
It was a sour final note to a sensational first season in New York for Brunson, who signed with the Knicks as a free agent in the summer of 2022 and immediately turned in one of the best seasons by a Knicks point guard since Hall of Famer Walt Frazier was running New York’s two championship-winning teams a half-century ago.
And all Brunson has done as an encore is average 28.7 points and 6.7 assists for the Knicks this season, lifting them to the second seed in the Eastern Conference and earning himself his first All-Star appearance, as well as a potential first-team All-NBA selection and a spot on MVP ballots, which were officially submitted earlier this week.
But all of that came with the goal of getting back to the playoffs and writing a different outcome this time around in mind. As for the play itself, Josh Hart — Brunson’s close friend and teammate both now with New York and in college at Villanova — had his own thoughts about it and the hangover that naturally lingered along with it.
“The only time I talked about it was just to let him know that I was open at the top of the key,” Hart said with a smile. “Wide open.
“We’ve made jokes about it. Because the way…
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