With 3 minutes left of Game 5 and the New York Knicks down 95-97 to the Detroit Pistons, Jalen Brunson limped to the sidelines after rolling his ankle attempting to defend a shot.
Detroit would go on to ice the Knicks out—winning the game and forcing a Game 6 back in Little Caesar’s Arena but after rewatching the Brunson ankle incident, it’s probably safer for the Knicks to play on the road.
https://t.co/BdnnunffoY pic.twitter.com/5eAlH1TQyJ
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) April 30, 2025
As you can see, Brunson plants his foot and the floor beneath him shifts.
Last year, Jalen Brunson was the first player to score 40+ points in 4 straight playoff games since Michael Jordan.
This year, Jalen Brunson started the playoffs with 4 consecutive 30+ point games—joining Michael Jordan as the only two players in NBA history to accomplish this feat.
It’s not an exaggeration to say Brunson is one of the most valuable players in the NBA.
The Knicks organization should be doing everything in their power to make sure he’s on the floor—including making sure there’s a floor, like, an actual glued-down floor for him to land on.
Prior to hiring Leon Rose in 2020 as the team president, running all basketball operations, Knicks owner James Dolan was considered one of the worst owners in all of sports, routinely on the receiving end of “SELL THE TEAM” chants anytime the Knicks suffered a home loss.
But Dolan has mainly been invisible as the Knicks have turned themselves into perennial playoff attendees but at the end of the day, Jimmy Dolan’s greasy fingerprints cannot be burned from this team as the court moves and rips victory away from them.
Jalen Brunson is superhuman, capable of carrying a downtrodden Knicks organization into relevance but he can’t overcome the Earth shifting underneath him.
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