What makes Jalen Brunson special, according to New York legend

The New Knicks have officially been crowned champions of the basketball world after defeating the San Antonio Spurs in the 2026 NBA Finals. Jalen Brunson took home NBA Finals MVP honors after being voted the unanimous winner of the award.

The series saw Brunson dominate, averaging 32.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 2.0 steals across the five-game series. Brunson also scored 56 points in fourth quarters of the series, averaging 11.2 points per fourth quarter.

New York Knicks play-by-play broadcaster and ESPN’s national broadcaster Mike Breen recently joined the Rich Eisen Show to speak about the Knicks championship run

“It’s a team that pretty much the entire city gets behind and it’s a team that has struggled for so long,” Mike Breen said during his appearance on the Rich Eisen Show. “But the fans never went away even in the rough years and there were many rough years as we all know so to go from that and stick with them through thick and through thin and see not only a team that have success but a team that that is such representative of the city and the kind of people that you want they’re such high character individuals they’re all about the team the way they carry themselves that’s a big part of it as well and then when you have your star player be the kind of young man that Jaylen Brunson is from a player to his toughness to his will of never giving up to overcoming all the yeah he’s good but stuff that’s an important factor as well.

Breen, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall-of-Fame back in 2021, has been the voice of the Knicks since 1997. Over his time covering the league, Mike Breen says Jalen Brunson has a special characteristic that stands out from other players.

“I said this the other day and it might sound a little corny but Brunson has all these these different characteristics that you want in your star player, that you want in your franchise player. One that that sometimes goes underrated he’s extremely coachable. Even at this level, he’s extremely coachable and that’s huge for a team to come together because if if the rest of the team sees okay this guy’s taken some some guff from the coach and and the coach gets on him not just the head coach but of course the assistant namely one Rick Brunson yes then then we can do it too so you put it all together and it just it becomes something really magical and that’s that’s what we always hope for that’s the long long-term dream when we start rooting for a team to have a team like this.”

Mike Breen

The longtime #AlwaysKnicks announcer told us about how having all the past New York greats around this team helped in the historic #NBA title run:#NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/fZdcCbFAVF

— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) June 15, 2026

The Knicks finished this season with an enormous amount of success, winning both the NBA Cup to the NBA Championship. Up next for the team is a championship parade on Thursday morning.

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