Jalen Brunson shakes off rough Game 3 to deliver for Knicks when it mattered

INDIANAPOLIS — For three quarters, it was hard to remember a worse performance from Jalen Brunson in his Knicks tenure.

For much of the fourth quarter, he was glued to the bench.

It didn’t matter.

He still ended up hitting the biggest shot and nailing the biggest free throws down the stretch of the Knicks’ 106-100 Game 3 win over the Pacers Sunday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

His teammates call him Mr. Clutch for a reason. He won the league’s Clutch Player of the Year award for a reason.

“It’s an emotional game, it’s a long game,” Brunson said. “Things can happen, things can not go your way. You can easily crash out, or you can respond the right way. I got people in my corner, people on this team who believe in me and believe in us. The conversations that we had as a team, the encouragement and everything we do is important, especially throughout a 48-minute game. Just gotta continue to believe.”

Entering the fourth quarter, Brunson was just 4-for-14 from the field. And he had gotten into foul trouble again, then picked up his fifth foul with 7:03 left in the game. The Knicks led by one point at the time, and coach Tom Thibodeau put Miles McBride into the game for Brunson. He sat until the 1:37 mark.

“I knew we had to have him down the stretch,” Thibodeau said.

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His intuition paid off.

Karl-Anthony Towns’ huge fourth quarter carried the Knicks much of that final quarter, but after reentering, Brunson became the Knicks closer.

With the score tied 98-98, Brunson’s floater gave the Knicks a two-point lead with 1:17 left. They led the rest of the way.

“Did you expect anything less from JB? He got that award for a reason,” Towns said. “We knew when we got in that fourth quarter, we gotta get back in the game and we felt very confident.”

Later, with the Knicks leading by two with 8.0 seconds left, the Pacers fouled Brunson to send him to the line. Missed free throws sunk the Knicks in their Game 1 collapse, but Brunson calmly nailed both to make it a two-possession game and seal the win.

“Honestly, just focus on the moment and clearing my mind,” Brunson said of his late-game execution. “And not worrying about what happened previously.”

Brunson finished with 23 points, just one assist and three turnovers. But Thibodeau has said all year that Brunson “is at his best when the best is needed.”

Sunday was just the latest — but perhaps most important — example.