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Jalen Brunson Wins 2024-25 NBA Clutch Player of the Year

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Amidst a rough couple of days for the New York Knicks after their ugly Game 2 loss to Detroit, they received some positive news. Their captain and superstar point guard, Jalen Brunson, will receive the 2024-25 NBA Clutch Player of the Year award. It’s the latest honor Brunson has earned during his spectacular third season in New York after becoming an All-Star starter in February. The Villanova product should also land on an All-NBA team for the second consecutive campaign.

This award is well deserved for Brunson, who was a steady hand in the clutch all season long. At times, he carried the Knicks’ crunch-time offense (perhaps more than is optimal), but seemed to always deliver. This award is yet another recognition of how his arrival in New York City has completely changed the franchise that was snakebitten for decades. Once a squad that usually lost close games against better stars, New York now comes out on top more often than not.

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Jalen Brunson Wins 2024-25 NBA Clutch Player of the Year

Brunson beat out two other top-tier superstars to win the award, including the best player in the world in Nikola Jokic. Jokic placed second, while Anthony Edwards came in third, but the race wasn’t particularly close. Brunson received 70 first-place votes to Jokic’s 26, crushing him in total points by a score of 426 to 312. Edwards received just two first-place votes and 47 total points.

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Brunson is a Deserving Winner 

Jokic, Edwards, and other stars around the league have been excellent all year in the clutch. Jokic is the undisputed best player in the league and has carried his undermanned Nuggets squad to tight wins all season. However, no one was quite as dominant in crunchtime as Brunson, who felt almost automatic down the stretch of games for the Knicks.

Brunson averaged 5.6 points per clutch game on 51.5% from the field, which ranked first and second in the league, respectively (minimum 2 FGA per clutch game). Only Jokic shot a higher percentage on clutch attempts (56.2%), but he averaged only 4.2 points. Brunson also posted an assist per clutch game to just 0.3 turnovers. New York was 17-11 in games classified as “clutch” contests that Brunson played in  (final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime with the score within five points).

Knicks Have Craved a Legitimate Point Guard

New York’s captain was the steady hand that this franchise has been lacking in a point guard for almost two decades. For a team that hadn’t started the same point guard in back-to-back seasons since Chris Duhon in 2009 until Brunson arrived in 2022, having a guy who can orchestrate the offense calmly in late-game situations has been a blessing. It’s not just the array of key buckets he scored (of which there were many), it’s his poise when everything around him is crumbling. His ability to dissect the best defenses with ease despite surrounding chaos at just 6-foot-2 is extremely impressive.

Few players have willingly taken the challenge of handling the ball at Madison Square Garden, and Brunson has embraced it. Well, the fans have embraced him back, and this award is just the latest recognition of his ascension to the top tier of NBA superstars. Brunson will almost certainly be named an All-NBA selection, and rightly so. The next step is for him to weaponize his clutch mastery and take the Knicks on a long playoff run.

Photo credit: © Brad Penner-Imagn Images

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