NEW YORK — An early injury concern nearly derailed Jalen Brunson’s night, as the star guard hobbled to the locker room in the opening quarter with apparent knee and ankle problems during Wednesday’s NBA Finals opener.
His absence was brief, and by the game’s final moments, that early scare was a distant memory.
The 2025 NBA clutch player award winner reminded everyone exactly why he earned that honor, delivering a spectacular closing performance over the last 7½ minutes that powered the New York Knicks to a 105-95 triumph over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday evening.
Brunson finished with 30 points overall, including 13 during that decisive final stretch — personally outscoring San Antonio in those crucial minutes.
“He’s a tremendous player that’s skilled, picks his spots, knows his angles, shoots contested shots without being sped up,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “He’s a phenomenal player. We just got to keep making him work. Again, he had a phenomenal game. He got going.”
The statistics from that game-changing final surge, beginning with 7:37 remaining and the score knotted at 86, tell the story:
— Brunson connected on 5 of 9 attempts, compared to San Antonio’s 2 of 11 shooting.
— While Brunson alone outscored the Spurs 13-9, New York as a team dominated 19-9.
— The guard sparked a personal 8-0 scoring spree that gave the Knicks a 94-86 advantage, and after San Antonio responded with their own 9-0 run to take a 95-94 lead, Brunson nailed a corner three-pointer that restored New York’s lead permanently.
— San Antonio failed to score another point.
“I think we know what we have to do,” Brunson said. “I think we are a pretty together group. Be able to trust each other and still have each other’s back and know that we just have to keep chipping away, chipping away. It’s just a credit to the mentality that we have as a team.”
The victory marks New York’s 12th consecutive win, making them just the third franchise to accomplish such a feat during a single postseason. The previous two teams to achieve this — San Antonio in 1999 (ironically against New York in the finals) and Golden State in 2017 — both captured NBA championships.
For the Knicks to reach that pinnacle, they’ll likely need Brunson performing at peak level. When he returned from the locker room after his early exit — while not quite matching the legendary Willis Reed moment in Knicks history — it immediately eased concerns for teammates like center Karl-Anthony Towns.
“When we all saw him limp off, we were worried not only because he’s Jalen Brunson but more because he’s our brother and we are a family in our locker room,” Towns said. “But when we were on the court and I saw him walking back out to the bench, it was a relief feeling just to know he’s safe.”
Though many contests during New York’s current winning streak have been dominant victories, several have featured gutsy rallies from significant deficits. Wednesday marked the third playoff game where the Knicks overcame a double-digit disadvantage to claim victory. They previously erased a 22-point deficit in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against Cleveland, overcame a 12-point hole in Game 3 of the East semifinals versus Philadelphia, and now battled back from 14 points down against the Spurs.
“It’s a position we obviously don’t want to be in but it’s always a next-play mentality,” Brunson said. “We have to control the things that we can control and our team is going to go on runs. Things are going to happen and somehow we bounce back. We continue to find a way and just kind of keep chipping away. We knew one play was not going to bring us all the way back but we just kept chipping away.”
