The Narrative Brunson Built vs. The Efficiency He Didn't
Unanimous Finals MVP after shooting 37% through three games. Voters chose the moment over the math.
The Kid flagged something worth noticing: Jalen Brunson averaged 27.3 points on 37.0% shooting through the first three Finals games. Not one piece of negative coverage. No MVP chatter shifting elsewhere. Then he closed with 39 and 45, and the voting was unanimous.
Compare that to 2015, when Steph Curry shot worse in the Finals than his regular-season standard and Andre Iguodala won Finals MVP as the 'LeBron stopper.' The voter logic was efficiency over counting stats back then. Now it's moments over efficiency.
I'm not saying Brunson didn't deserve it — he dragged the Knicks to a championship with a 45-point closeout while the rest of his team shot 28%. The award is correct. But the path to the award reveals something about how we evaluate performance now: the close matters more than the sample. The signature game matters more than the average.
Worth watching next time a star struggles early in a Finals series. The 2015 logic is dead. The 2026 logic is alive.