Knicks prove they can win a big one by following Jalen Brunson’s lead

Maybe you keep waiting for the whole Jalen Brunson Experience to show a crack in the foundation, a hole in the pipes or the heating system. Anything that feels this good, this true, that feels too good to be true, generally tends to be too good to be true.

You are still waiting.

You’ve seen him pick the Knicks, and New York City, at a time when nobody did that by choice, only as a last resort. You saw him leave money on the table when he could’ve squeezed every nickel out of the team’s coffers and nobody would’ve begrudged him, nobody would’ve said a word.

Tuesday night, just past 11:15, with the Knicks freshly crowned champs of the NBA Cup by virtue of a 124-113 win over the Spurs at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, Brunson was introduced as the event’s MVP. The enormous contingent of Knicks fans on hand up-shifted from bananas to berserk. So did the Knicks, especially the roster fillers who are going to have an extra Merry Christmas thanks to the extra windfall that goes along with winning the NBA Cup. The hats are nice. The checks are better.