SI

J.R. Smith Awkwardly Tried to Rub Off Championship Aura on Jalen Brunson

Josh Wilson

Smith rubs Brunson's shoulder in a postgame interview
Smith rubs Brunson's shoulder in a postgame interview / @TheStrickland screengrab of SportsCenter on X (formerly Twitter)
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Facing elimination, the New York Knicks stayed alive with a convincing Game 5 win on home court Thursday night. They're not out of the woods yet, needing two more wins to rally together an improbable 3-1 comeback in the best-of-seven series, but they've taken the first step.

Just like most of this postseason, the Knicks went as Jalen Brunson did, leading the team in scoring with 32 points. After the game, he spoke with Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter and was joined by an uninvited J.R. Smith for a very awkward moment caught on camera.

Here's that weird moment:

Smith, wearing his two championship rings from his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers (2016) and Los Angeles Lakers (2020), rubbed the rings all over Brunson's shoulder, claiming he now has "ring fever," in an effort to propel him and the Knicks closer to a title.

The guard was a Knick for three and a half seasons and spent most of his upbringing in north New Jersey, claiming a Knicks fandom.

Faced with the improbability of coming back from a 3-1 deficit, Brunson and the Knicks will certainly take any help they can get, even if it comes at the cost of awkward shoulder rubs.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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