Orange and Blue skies.
Jalen Brunson has won the NBA’s 2024-25 Clutch Player of the Year award the league announced Wednesday. Brunson joins De’Aaron Fox of the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry as the only winners of the award in its relatively brief history. He is the first New York Knick to take home a major individual trophy since his former teammate, Julius Randle, who is now with the Minnesota Timberwolves, was named the Most Improved Player after the 2020-21 season.
“I think some people are born into it,” Brunson told TNT’s “Inside the NBA” on Wednesday night about being clutch. “I think I had to learn back in high school, and I’ve gotten better and better at each stage, and here we are.”
Brunson earned 70 first place votes out of 100. Denver Nuggets Nikola Jokic came in second with 26 first-place votes and Timberwolves Anthony Edwards rounded out the top three with two first-place votes. Only two other players received first-place votes on the ballot: Steph Curry and LeBron James.
Embed from Getty ImagesBrunson’s late-game heroics kept the Knicks in the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference almost singlehandedly. He came up huge, scoring 156 total points in clutch situations this season, second-most in the league behind Edwards at 157. The major difference was volume. Edwards played 42 clutch games. Brunson played 28, but he shot 51.5% in the clutch in those games, allowing him to accumulate points at a much faster pace than Edwards did.
Notably, Brunson is the first Clutch Player of the Year winner not to lead the NBA in total clutch points in their winning season, as Fox and Curry both did so.
“Just finding a way to win,” Brunson said. “That’s the most important thing. You can make clutch plays, but they don’t mean anything if you don’t win. The winning part is most important to me.”
Brunson’s clutch prowess and will to win in late and close game situations were on display for all to see Saturday in Game 1 of New York’s first-round series against the Detroit Pistons. Brunson led the Knicks on a 21-0 fourth quarter run to claim victory.
With the best-of-7 series tied at 1, Brunson said the key is “just starting fast” in Game 3 on Thursday night.
“I think they’ve gotten the better of us starting the game in Games 1 and 2, and we have had to climb back in both games,” Brunson said. “We got to start off well. They are playing way too well for us to start off slow.”
The Knicks ultimately went 19-12 in the clutch, and 17-11 in Brunson’s clutch games. The Knicks have now gone above .500 in all three of Brunson’s seasons in the ‘Big Apple’, but that did not mean he lacked stiff competition. The award’s runner-up was someone who has plenty of hardware in his trophy case already: Jokic, the three-time MVP.
Jokic led his Denver Nuggets to a 21-16 record in the clutch. He did not score quite as many points in those moments as Brunson, as he finished the year with 140, but he was more efficient, posting a 56-43-72 shooting line in clutch situations. Unsurprisingly, Jokic also ranked second in clutch assists (while Brunson was third) and third in clutch rebounds.
Ultimately, the voters were swayed by Brunson’s shot-making. When the Knicks need a bucket late in games, Brunson’s craftiness and footwork almost always gets them one. Now, the award named for the late Jerry West gets its third consecutive winner that shares his position as a guard.
