Knicks Star Jalen Brunson, Wife Ali Get Candid About the Pressure He Faced

The New York Knicks officially have their first NBA championship win in 53 years, and the team has been celebrating by doing the media rounds and relishing in their ticker-tape parade.

Guard Jalen Brunson was really the superstar of the NBA Finals. In the final game of the series, he scored 45 points against the San Antonio Spurs to push the Knicks to the team's 94-90 championship-clinching win.

Not everyone has always been a Brunson believer, though. He's one of the smaller guards in the NBA at just 6-foot2. Because of his size, there have been plenty of naysayers who have said that he'll never rise to becoming a champion.

But Brunson obviously proved them wrong, and as it turns out, part of his motivation to do well was because of those critics.

Jalen, Alo Brunson Comment on Critics, Especially Becky Hammon

There's a well-known beef between Brunson and coach Becky Hammon of the Las Vegas Aces. Previously, Hammon said of Brunson: "He too small. If your best player is small, you're not winning… Steph Curry is the only dude."

She didn't even really apologize after the Knicks' win. Instead, she said that Brunson was the exception to the rule, stating: "I mean, he was that 1A dude. But apologize, I'm never gonna apologize for having an opinion. That's what ESPN pays me for."

Speaking to NY Mag, Brunson's wife, Dr. Ali Marks Brunson, opened up about the "pressure" that Jalen felt to prove Hammon was wrong. Prove her wrong he did. Brunson now has a championship with the Knicks and he was crowned NBA Finals MVP.

"I think there was a lot of pressure," Ali told the publication. "If he wasn't able to achieve this, it proves everybody right that New York needed someone different and they made the wrong choice in Jalen."

Jalen Brunson Comments on His Naysayers

In the same chat, Brunson didn't say that Hammon's comments were a motivator, but he did say that it was a range of naysayers who he was able to prove wrong.

"I don't want to say it drove me. She definitely wasn’t the only person that said anything, so I'm not even going to single her out by giving her an answer," he said. "I said I didn't care about it then. I'm not going to answer it now.

"I feel like I don't really have to at this point anymore. I did what I was supposed to do."

In other Brunson news, the star player will release his debut book in August of 2027. He announced the news on the NBC "Today" show this week.

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