Ex-import in Knicks staff

There’s a former PBA import in the New York Knicks coaching staff and his son plays for the team that’s a win away from dethroning the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The ex-import is Rick Brunson who played a single game for Ginebra in the 1998 Governors’ Cup, scoring 21 points in a 107-97 loss to Formula Shell. The word was Brunson didn’t get along with Ginebra playing coach Robert Jaworski who disliked his “NBA attitude.”

In 2013, I came across Brunson at the Nike Kevin Durant Skills Academy camp at the Sidwell Friends School Gym in Washington, DC and he declined to talk about his brief PBA stint. Brunson and another ex-PBA import Mike Morrison helped out coach John Lucas at the camp.

Brunson, 52, is the proud father of the Knicks’ star guard Jalen who recently received the Jerry West trophy as the NBA season’s Clutch Player of the Year. Jalen, 28, is leading the New York charge back to the Eastern Conference finals after 25 years. Last Monday, he scored 39 points as the Knicks defeated the Celtics, 121-113, at Madison Square Garden to erect a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. Game Five is set tonight (tomorrow morning, Manila time) in Boston with the Celtics on the brink of elimination.

Before the season began, New York coach Tom Thibodeau reconfigured the Knicks lineup by adding Mikal Bridges to fortify the team’s wing defense. Thibs knew that the Celtics stood in the way of the Knicks’ progress and he had to rejig the lineup to address Boston’s perimeter offense. “You can’t beat the Celtics without wing defenders and New York has a bunch of them,” wrote Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. “This is a Tom Thibodeau type of team with a bunch of big-time defenders who don’t mind playing heavy minutes.”

In the first two games of the series, New York crawled out of 20-point deficits to win on the road. But in Game Three at the Garden, the Celtics led by 31 and blasted the Knicks, 115-93, riding on a hot 20-of-40 from three. Curiously, Boston was only 25-of-100 in Games One and Two. Living or dying with the three-point shot is a huge risk but coach Joe Mazzulla obviously is a gambling man.

In Game Four, the Celtics knocked down 18-of-48 triples but paid the price by shooting .481 from the floor compared to New York’s .543. The Knicks had more paint points, 64-32 and grabbed more rebounds, 43-31 with more shots on goal, 92 to 79. New York’s bruising defense gave Boston 26 free throws, 14 more than the Knicks’ attempts but Thibs didn’t mind the fallout for as long as the effort took a toll on the Celtics’ composure. Boston was up by 14 in the third but the Knicks closed out the quarter with a 12-2 run that created momentum in the fourth. With 3:06 left, Jayson Tatum tried to retrieve a loose ball and went down with an injury that led to his exit. He left with 42 points punctuated by seven triples. Mazzulla tried several combinations to thwart the Knicks, including Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford together in a towering frontline. But the Celtics couldn’t soften the Knicks’ toughness. If Tatum isn’t able to recover from his injury, the Knicks will formalize Boston’s dethronement with three chances to win once.