Big moments have belonged to Knicks' Jalen Brunson in NBA Finals

It’s been easy to find Jalen Brunson on the floor in the NBA Finals.

You could follow the trail of San Antonio Spurs defenders attached to him like packs of little kids in youth soccer chasing the ball like hornets. You could look for the biggest shots in high-pressure moments and trace the arc of the shot back to his left hand as he has delivered clutch shot after clutch shot to help the Knicks to a 2-0 lead as the series shifted back to Madison Square Garden Monday night, looking to move a step closer to the franchise's first title in 53 years.

Or you could just look for the biggest plays of each game, and how in Zelig-like fashion, you find Brunson somehow immersed at the center of it.

In Game 1, with the Knicks trailing by one late in the fourth quarter, it was the generously measured 6-2 Brunson who stood just behind 7-4 Victor Wembanyama as OG Anunoby launched a three-point attempt from the top of the circle. As the ball came off the rim long, Brunson found himself between Wembanyama and a rapidly closing 6-5 Devin Vassell. He leapt and batted the ball back to Mikal Bridges — then moved to the corner where he caught a return pass and calmly sank the three-point field goal to start an 11-0 run to finish the game.

Then with the score tied and just 13 seconds to play in Game 2, Brunson misfired, the last field-goal attempt he’d have in a 7-for-25 struggle. But instead of putting his head down, he retreated on defense. Wembanyama secured the rebound and started upcourt, casually tossing a pass to Stephon Castle streaking up the left side of the floor. Watch the play and you can see Brunson hustle into position, either to draw a charge near midcourt — a hustle statistic that he led the NBA in this season — or to at least slow the Spurs’ offensive push up the floor. Castle never saw the ball coming and it bounced off his back.

But Brunson was there and immediately pounced on the errant pass, picking up his fifth steal of the night, matching his career high for thefts. Fouled by Wembanyama, he hit the first free throw before missing the second, still giving the Knicks the go-ahead point for another victory.

“Yeah, I just saw he wasn't looking, so I just tried to go get it,” Brunson said. “Didn't know if it was going to go out of bounds. I just didn't want Wemby to come back and get it. So I had to secure the ball and got fouled and went to the free-throw line.”

In the two wins, the box score may tell you that Brunson has endured a rough series in his first NBA Finals, shooting 19-for-56 with eight assists and eight turnovers. But somehow, he has been in the middle of every big moment and pushed the Knicks over the top.

It’s hard to imagine anyone in Knicks history who just always seems to make the right play. A comparison might have to go uptown to the Bronx, from Madison Square Garden to Yankee Stadium, and for the most notable moment, all the way across the country to Oakland where on Oct. 13, 2001, when Derek Jeter was enduring an 0-for-3 night at the plate and the Yankees were struggling to hold onto a 1-0 lead in the seventh inning of Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Athletics.

Jeter would have been drilled and taught the shortstop covers second base as Terrance Long hits e a double into the rightfield corner. But as Shane Spencer’s throw sailed over the proper cutoff men — the second baseman and first baseman — Jeter instead raced across the infield, snared the errant throw as he veered into foul territory along the first-base line and flipped it backhand to Jorge Posada, who slapped the tag on Jeremy Giambi at home plate. An amazing play, but the question really was, why was Jeter even there? How did he anticipate that?

And that is what Brunson has done through the first two games in the biggest moments — found himself in a place where you wonder, how did he anticipate that?

“I'm just happy to be finding ways to win, with J.B. and everybody,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “I don't know, I'll leave that question to you and everyone else. I'm just worried about the team result, which is winning. And for J.B., you call it rough shooting nights. I see him hitting the free throw to give us the game, get Mitch [Robinson] a chance to get the stop for us to win the game. [In Game 1], he hit some of the craziest shots I've seen to give us the game. So I don't know if you say a rough shooting night. I see Captain Clutch doing what he's always been doing since I got here, and I see, you know, he's a huge part when it comes down to the actual, the game, to winning the game, Number 11 can't be messed with.”

“When I first took notice of him, I was defensive coordinator in Golden State,” Mike Brown said. “We had to play against Dallas. I remember first couple times we played against them, we put a guard on him. I was amazed. Because when you look at him, you're like, OK, he's not the biggest guy, not the most athletic guy, not the quickest guy. OK, you can put a guy 6-4, 6-5 guy on him, you'll be OK. No. We put guys 6-6, 6-7 on him. He got to his spot methodically. He put his back shoulder in them, he still scored.

“When we played him in the playoffs, Luka [Doncic] is great, an all-time great, he's going to probably go down for sure as a top-10 player, maybe top five, I don't know. As a defensive coordinator, this is just me, going into that series, my concern wasn't Luka, my concern was Jalen. We put Draymond Green on Jalen. That's how concerned we were. Because we needed a bigger, stronger, tougher guy to try to do it or to try to slow him down at that time. Jalen didn't shoot as many threes, he didn't play as many pick-and-rolls because the ball was in Luka's hands. Now it's different. If you put a power forward on him, he's in a ball screen, out in transition, he can score from all three levels. He does it with a patience that you embrace as a coach because it's not hurried and frantic all the time. It always seems like he's in control, which helps you as a coach be in control, which helps his teammates be in control. He's been a problem in this league for a long time.”

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, not after Brunson was named the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year last season and not after he entered Monday averaging 9.3 points per game in the fourth quarter of the playoff games, the highest of any player in the postseason. But maybe what’s surprising is that it isn’t just the huge shots, the degree-of-difficulty shots over Wembanyama that have made the difference.

It’s been Brunson doing whatever is needed to make it happen for the Knicks.

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.