Excuse Jalen Brunson for being tired of all the excuses made for the Knicks.
Sure, the Knicks squandered a 2-0 series lead against the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals and were eliminated by losing a Game 7 on their home floor. But what were they supposed to do when their lineup for most of the series was missing Julius Randle, Mitchell Robinson, Bojan Bogdanovic and OG Anunoby, and then Josh Hart was injured during Game 6?
Brunson, who joined the list of injuries with a fractured left hand in Game 7, doesn’t want to be let off the hook.
“The one thing I hated the most – even though like we were playing well, we were winning, we were up 2-0, then up 3-2 – whenever we lost everyone was like, ‘Oh, it’s they’re tired or their injuries,'” Brunson said on Friday’s episode of the Roommates Show with co-host and teammate Hart. “Honestly, that kind of pissed me off.
“Because, I mean, yeah, we don’t have a full team, but, I don’t want to use that. I don’t want the narrative being, ‘Oh, they’re hurt so let’s give them a pass.’ Like, no. We had chances to win that series and didn’t. We had a chance to go up 3-0 and we didn’t.”
No wonder Brunson might be the most popular athlete in New York – a city where excuses are rarely accepted.
It seemed that the play that gnaws at Brunson is Andrew Nembhard’s 31-foot prayer of a 3-pointer to break a tie late in Game 3, when the Knicks really could have taken control of the series.
“I just hate the fact that sometimes people give us the fact that we were injured or injuries happen,” Brunson said. “Like yeah, they’re a part of the game, but that’s not the reason we lost. We had chances to win. We were winning with those injuries. I just hate the narrative. I hate the narrative.”
Hart rolled his eyes and tried to show Brunson the light.
“You were like, ‘We were winning with the injuries,’” Hart said. “I’m like, ‘Kind of.’”
They ultimately agreed on this point: “We had a chance to win despite our injuries.”
Maybe next year.