NEW YORK — As he sat at a podium with his left hand and wrist immobilized because of a fractured wrist following the Yankees’ 130-109 loss to the Indiana Pacers in Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson was asked if this season had been a success.
“No,” he said categorically.
When later asked why this happened, he replied, “Did we win the championship? Did we come close to it?”
After a pause, he added, “No. That’s my mindset.”
“It’s just like that.”
That also could apply to Brunson’s injury, which occurred in the third quarter when he said he took a hit from Tyrese Haliburton and felt something in his hand.
After a brief stop in the locker room, Brunson returned to the court for 14 seconds with 3:02 remaining in the third quarter and headed to the locker room, ending the remainder of both the game and New York’s season.
“Honestly, I thought I jammed it,” Brunson said of briefly getting back in the game and then exiting again. “I looked down and I knew something was wrong.”
For Brunson, it was a disappointing end — on both a personal and team level — to a stellar season that included his fifth-place finish in the NBA’s most valuable player voting earlier this month. He averaged 32.4 points in his 13 playoff games — second only to star Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers, whom they beat in the first round.
But after battling a foot injury earlier in the series, Brunson and the Knicks fell short against an Indiana team that set an NBA record for a playoff game by shooting 67.1% from the field in Game 7, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
“I would say there are pros and cons to the way I played,” Brunson said in evaluating his season. “The definite plus is that I played well individually at some points in the playoffs. The minus is that I didn’t play well enough to help my team advance.
“You can say I got injured in Game 7, I wasn’t playing well in Game 7. We had leads of 2-0 and 3-2, it’s hard to look at things personally when you’re not helping your team.”
Brunson, who is rarely willing to speak at length over a microphone, took that same approach after the game. When asked about the possibility of signing an extension with New York this summer — he is eligible to sign a four-year, $156.5 million deal with the Knicks in July — Brunson cut off the question before it was finished, saying, “I’ll talk about that another time.”
When asked about the limits of a healthy Knicks team — by the end of Game 7, New York was missing Brunson, Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson and Bojan Bogdanovic — he said, “We’ll talk about that next year.” However, when asked about the team’s trajectory, he acknowledged, “I think we’re making positive progress. We just need to make more progress.”
But, in his typical style, he said he is not satisfied with his game, even though this has been the best season of his career. In this regard, Brunson said that when he is able to go to the gym this summer, his focus will be on improving. He will not be able to go to the gym until his shooting hand heals.
“I go into every summer thinking about how can I get better as a player, how can I be the most complete player I can possibly be,” Brunson said. “Obviously there’s a lot of things, X’s and O’s-wise, physically and other things that I can do to get better. I think the most important thing I need to do is stop striving for perfection, just striving for perfection, and knowing that I’m never going to get there.
“Just, my mind tells me I have to get better every day. I don’t care what I’ve done as a player, it doesn’t mean anything. … I’m going into this summer training to get better.”
