{"id":824570,"date":"2026-05-27T02:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/824570\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T02:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T02:43:13","slug":"becky-hammon-doubles-down-on-jalen-brunson-knicks-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/824570\/","title":{"rendered":"Becky Hammon doubles down on Jalen Brunson Knicks take"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Knicks are back in the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years<\/a>, a fact that probably wouldn\u2019t have been possible without Jalen Brunson. <\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t seem to be enough for Becky Hammon to change her stance on him. At least not yet. <\/p>\n

The Las Vegas Aces head coach told reporters Tuesday that she is ready to be \u201cproven wrong\u201d about Brunson after previously saying he didn\u2019t measure up to be a \u201c1A dude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson reacts after hitting a 3-point shot in the first quarter of the Knicks\u2019 Game 4 win over the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals on May 25, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak from experience,\u201d Hammon said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. \u201cAllen Iverson got MVP, and he lost in the finals. I think the two best teams are probably in the West, but I\u2019m up for being proven wrong. That\u2019s the other thing, I think Jalen Brunson\u2019s a hell of a player, a hell of a player. I\u2019m speaking historically on the NBA with what I said. I don\u2019t know why everybody\u2019s so stuck on that. I said it two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said what I said. If he proves me wrong, he proves me wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 2023, during an appearance on ESPN\u2019s \u201cNBA Today,\u201d<\/a> Hammon, the former WNBA star player who has won three of the past four titles as a coach, said the Knicks were stuck in the second tier of teams that didn\u2019t have quite enough to win an NBA championship. Part of that, according to Hammon, was that Brunson \u2014 listed at 6-foot-2 \u2014 was not the caliber of star needed to reach the next level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t have enough personnel, they don\u2019t have the manpower that they need to hang with those guys,\u201d Hammon said then. \u201cI think you\u2019re going to get a consistent team like they\u2019ve been, they\u2019re a pretty good team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re, they\u2019re well-coached, they\u2019re going to be on their defensive game, but at the end of the day, they don\u2019t have a dude. You gotta have a dude, you gotta have a 1A dude and they\u2019re missing that at the end of the day if we\u2019re just getting down to brass tacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon looks on during their loss to the Los Angeles Sparks on May 23, 2026 at Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Since then, the Brunson-led Knicks \u2014 with two different head coaches (Tom Thibodeau and Mike Brown) \u2014 have reached the playoffs three times, twice getting to the Eastern Conference finals and breaking through to get to the NBA Finals this year.<\/p>\n

Brunson has averaged 26.9 points and 6.6 assists per game in this postseason and scored more than 30 points twice in the four-game sweep of the Cavaliers in the conference finals, including a 38-point effort in the Knicks\u2019 historic Game 1 comeback<\/a>. He took home MVP honors<\/a> for the series.<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson and the Eastern Conference Finals trophy on the table during a post game press conference. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe belief that the organization has in me has been amazing, and something I don\u2019t take for granted, and something not a lot of people get the opportunity to do,\u201d Brunson said after clinching the finals berth. \u201cSo I\u2019m very thankful. It\u2019s an honor to be here in this city for this organization with my teammates.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks are back in the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years, a fact that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":824571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[20890,24114,1260,3578,3579,304733,3122,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-824570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-becky-hammon","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-nba-playoffs-2026","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116644243674691162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}