Jalen Brunson takes home NBA Clutch Player of the Year award for late-game efforts

When games enter crunch time, Jalen Brunson routinely elevates his game.Now, he’s been recognized for it. He won the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year award, it was announced Wednesday night.

He beat out Anthony Edwards and Nikola Jokic, who were the two other finalists. Brunson is only the third winner of the award, which was created in 2023.De’Aaron Fox was the first recipient and Steph Curry won it last year. Brunson scored 156 points in the clutch — which the league defines as the last five minutes of a game when the score differential is five points or less — in the regular season, per NBA.com’s tracking stats, which was second-most in the league behind Edwards.But Brunson shot a stellar 51.5 percent from the field in the clutch, compared to Edwards’ 42.6 percent.

Brunson also recorded 28 assists in the clutch, third-most in the league. Does he enjoy playing in the fourth quarter the most? “Whatever it takes to win,” Brunson said recently.“I don’t really think about it that way.

I just know it’s time where truly everything counts, truly everything matters.”He’s had mixed results this postseason, however.Through the first two games of the Knicks’ first round series against the Pistons, which is tied 1-1 heading to Detroit, he has four total points in the clutch on just 1 of 3 shooting from the field along with one assist. ...