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As I’ve written before, you can make a pretty strong argument that Jalen Brunson, only three years into his Knicks career, is the most universally beloved New York City athlete of the last 25 years. That may be true because of a slight technicality: Though the city has split loyalties in baseball, football, and hockey, we are decades away, at best, of the Nets ever creating such a reality in the NBA. But Brunson’s status speaks to both the Knicks’ history of futility and to the importance of his arrival on the New York stage. He is the best hope the Knicks have had for a title, which is the biggest thing that could possibly happen in New York sports, and maybe all of sports, right now. He’s everything.

Which is why it was so strange how often, during the Knicks’ game-four loss to the Pacers earlier this week, you found yourself thinking: Are the Knicks better with Brunson on the bench? Brunson, for all his offensive brilliance, can be a defensive sieve, simply because of his height; a team like the Pacers can (and did) shoot over him constantly. Heading into Thursday’s game five, the Knicks were a full 28 points better when Brunson was off the court than when he was on it. Brunson so far this series hadn’t been the savior — he’d been the problem.

That changed quickly; Brunson was brilliant on Thursday night. He scored 32 points, grabbing five rebounds and dishing out five assists in the Knicks’ breezy 111–94 win over the Pacers, which staved off elimination and sent the series back to Indianapolis for game six on Saturday night. Brunson set the tone with a fantastic first quarter and nearly eliminated that 28-points-worse spread in one game, with a plus-minus of plus-18 when all was said and done. He also clearly won his battle with Pacers superstar Tyrese Haliburton —his offseason wrestling sparring partner, who had perhaps the best game of anyone this entire postseason in game four. Haliburton struggled from the outset Thursday, ultimately scoring only eight points and getting off only seven shots. (That was fewer than Obi Toppin had, amazingly.) Haliburton’s woes were indicative of the Knicks’ dramatically improved defense in game four. The Knicks were swarming from the opening tip, and collectively so; everybody played sharper and with more defensive zip, to the point that Haliburton could never quite get in a rhythm. Accordingly, the Pacers were never really in the game. Add that to another terrific offensive performance from Karl-Anthony Towns — as the TNT broadcast noted, Brunson and Towns are the first teammates to score 20 points or more in each of the first five games of a conference final since Shaq and Kobe in 2002 — and it was a rollicking night at Madison Square Garden.

The only question that matters now: Will it be the last one of the season? The Knicks head back to Indianapolis on Saturday, still facing elimination, in front of a raucous crowd of their own. (Looks like another couple more nights at the JW Marriott in downtown Indy for you, Timothée.) Most of the pundits who picked the Knicks in seven in this series — by far the most common prediction — did so because it was impossible to imagine the Knicks losing a game seven at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks can put themselves in position to make the NBA Finals — the Knicks! In the NBA Finals! — Monday night if they can just make it through Saturday. It would be the biggest game in New York City of the last 25 years, led by the most popular city athlete of that exact time period. The Knicks kept themselves Thursday. On Saturday, they have to do it one more time. And then: All hell will break loose.

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