Yang Yi: Remember that with him, don’t compete with the Knicks for key goals!

Boston Garden Arena, the first time of the Eastern Conference semi-finals, the last second, Towns had no room for attack, but Jaren Brunson ran back and shook Holiday away, cutting to the basket. The ball arrived, and on Horford's aging fingertips, Brunson threw the ball, and flew towards the basket after hitting the board, and then came out again. The

shot shows Brunson standing at the bottom line. The buddy puts his hips on his hips and smiles lustfully. The 28-year-old but overly sophisticated face shows a slightly regretful expression of determination that he is bound to gain and lose. I will not regret that I have not entered the Forbes wealth list in China so far, nor will I regret that I have not been admitted to Tsinghua University. People will only regret that I could have done but did not in the end. Brunson has plenty of reasons to regret because he can score a winning goal, and he has a rich resume to do this. Just 4 days ago, in the last moment of G6 that eliminated the Pistons, Brunson shook Osal Thompson and scored a winning three-pointer. After G1, Osal once told reporters that there is no challenge to defend Brunson. It is not clear whether Osar's twin brother Amen has ever said something like "There is no challenge to defend Curry", but both brothers seem to have paid a similar price in front of the veterans.

And just a week before this finale, Brunson was elected the league's key player this season. According to statistics, Brunson scored 52 sports goals at critical moments this season (first in the league), scored 156 points (second in the league), sent 28 assists (third in the league), averaged 5.6 points at critical moments (first in the league), and the shooting percentage of these key moves reached 51.5%. It makes sense that he won this award from Jokic.

Running into the playoffs, Brunson's key attributes still exist. To this day, he scored 41 points in a critical moment, and the second place was his teammate Towns, with 21 points. In fact, Brunson is not only the key, he is also the king of the fourth quarter of this year's playoffs, with averaging 10.8 points per game, a full 2.5 points higher than Alexander, who ranked second. After playing G1 with Green Kai, the NBA officially released a statistics. Since the 1997-98 season, only three players have scored 75+ points in the first seven games of the playoffs, namely Brunson this year, Curry in 2023 and Kobe in 2008. This is a very difficult statistic, but you only need to know that "Brunson, Curry, Kobe" has appeared in the same statistical caliber.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, the key may not be a particularly good honor. If you rely on data accumulation at critical moments to get this prize, others have reason to ask why your team always plays at critical moments, and why you can only rely on you alone when playing critical moments. But for the player himself, being regarded as reliable at critical moments will never be a bad thing. Especially at this moment, the Knicks' fourth quarter and even critical moments have become Brunson's comfort zone. He stayed in this area and led the team to win Green Kai in overtime in G1. G2 was in the same position. He used two last-minute free throws (along with Lewis) to defeat Green Kai. Now the Knicks are holding two away wins and are about to return to New York home court, with a bright future.

Brunson is not tall and has a big head. He has been the boss in New York for three years. He led the team to the second round of the playoffs in the past three years. The last time the Knicks did this can be traced back to the 1999-00 season. The team is still in the Ewing era, and Thibodeau is also an assistant coach under Jeff Van Gundy. Later, even if he got Melon, he only led the team to three playoffs, two first rounds were eliminated, and one division semi-final. After the new millennium, in the past ten years outside of Brunson and Melon, the Knicks cannot be said to be the worst team in the league, or they are almost the most cola-like team. Their point guards are Vaseline version Marbury, the fat Francis and Felton, Jeremy Lin and the elderly Prigioni who suddenly appeared and disappeared, and some TV sets, Neilkina and other names that I can't remember... And then, like suddenly, they got Brunson, a winner whose playoff data will always exceed the regular season, and the New Yorker has reason to ask why he can get him.

Brunson was not born to be regarded as such a critical matter, for example, Cuban did not think so in 2022. In 2018, Brunson was selected by the Mavericks as the second round of the Tanhua Show. After the 2020-21 season, Brunson ranked fourth in the Best Sixth Man vote. What he wanted was a four-year, $55 million rookie contract extension. According to Brunson's father Rick Brunson, 50 million is not unacceptable. But the Mavericks did not choose to give this early renewal, because the team will undergo a major change in management and coaching staff, and everything will be discussed when the newcomers are on the way. In the 2021-22 season, the Mavericks' new coach is Jason Kidd and the new general manager is Nick Harrison, but we all know that Cuban is the real behind-the-scenes trader. At the beginning of the season, Mr. Ku's mental state was "this kid won the most 45.1 million contract with a 4-year and 45.1 million contract in the free agent market." The time was around the trading deadline, and the Mavericks were willing to give 50 million in four years, but Brunson's self-assessment psychological price has risen to 87 million in five years, and the two sides have not agreed.

Wait until the summer of 2022, after the Mavericks' last excellent playoff journey, Cuban's perception of Brunson's value also rose to 105 million in five years, which is the level of Raptors VanVleet, but New York offered 104 million in four years, twice the amount Brunson wanted a year ago.

This is the process of New York finally getting the big head. But this result was not favored by everyone at the beginning. First of all, "The Knicks enthusiastically offer a big contract to a point guard who has not yet proved himself" is almost a familiar traditional ghost story in New York, specifically used to scare those fresh kids who can't sleep when watching the Knicks game at night..

Secondly, the story of Brunson in the whole of New York is interspersed with too many human feelings. Thibodeau and Big Head's father are old friends for many years, and the new Knicks president is Brunson's agent's father, which is somewhat suspicious. It looks a bit like the way a gang of bidding and bidding was committed during the bidding process. Anyway, the owner of the Garden Arena has always been very short of money and doesn't care.

Finally fell on the court, Brunson himself also has some attributes that seem difficult to succeed. He is 1.85 meters tall and lacks sufficient athletic ability. He bounces, speed, and agility. He does not have the super projection that can make his opponent tremble by standing at the midfield logo. It is hard to believe how far this true pure slut can lead the team.

But the fact is that he has led the team to enter the district semi-finals for three years. Now one foot is on the face of the defending champion who has not demolished the team and has no major injuries, and the other foot has entered the district finals, which is enough for everyone to look up to him. Moreover, his performance has also broken through many people's traditional perception of the slut leader. In three years, he has played 32 playoff games for the Knicks, averaging 30.1 points, 4 rebounds, 6.9 assists and 1 steal per game. It is already the first-line output level, not to mention his super-level performance at critical moments.

Knicks coach Thibodeau said that he believed that "genes at critical moments" are real, "Some excellent players have demonstrated their key ball skills again and again, which is definitely not accidental." Thibodeau's speech is not very scientific, but it doesn't matter. Thibodeau's view of basketball itself is not very scientific. But one thing worth noting is that Thibodeau's system has always been conducive to the point guard's performance. Previously, "Little Potato" Nate Robinson replaced Rose as the starting lineup, which was also very outstanding. On the other hand, as a point guard, if you can't play in Thibodeau's system, you may not play anywhere. The best case I can think of may be Teague of the Timberwolves, but whether he played the role of point guard in the Wolves at that time remains to be discussed. In short, he did not play, and the speed of light disappeared later.

It is difficult to describe Brunson's excellent qualities specifically. One thing that can be confirmed is that he has sold his soul to the devil farmer Thibodeau. Listen to his heartfelt words: "Thanks to Coach Thibodeau for letting me play so many minutes in the regular season, which allowed me to maintain a good physical condition for the playoffs."

Brunson played college basketball for three years and won two championships. The second one was still absolute core and got the MOP himself, but one thing was bad. Jay Wright, the head coach of the Villanova Wildcats, taught him a set of media rhetoric, and always said some souvenirs in the face of the media, such as I am the leader but not the storefront, and my final hit is all due to my teammates, and thanks to the coaches for their careful guidance. But thanking the coach for thanking him for playing time, this sentence is already colder than his blood at critical moments. Even if the donkey from the production team goes to Thibodeau to play, he will wail twice. In the middle of the season, Bridges once publicly complained about "the body is not relaxed, and I hope that the substitute players will come up and play." Now Brunson publicly expressed his gratitude. We have sufficient reason to believe that he has betrayed the player class. After all, his average playing time "can only" rank 14th in the league, but he still has three coworkers who are in the top 5 in the league.

From this point, in Internet buzzwords, I personally like to end comedy, but I am 28 years old and can tell the difference between like and believe. The meaning of falling on Brunson is that I wish he had a he, but I clearly remember that once upon a time, another slut was the king of the fourth quarter.