Jalen Brunson says the moment to stop celebrating doesn’t come with a timetable - it comes when you decide it does.
Speaking on the Things No One Tells You podcast with Lindsay Czarniak, the Knicks cornerstone talked about how long a championship high can last after a team finally gets over the line. New York’s title ended a 53-year wait, and Brunson made it clear that there’s no universal rule for when the party should end and the next goal should take over.
“Everyone talks about the emotion of winning it right when it happens. Right when, literally as the buzzer goes off, the rest of the evening, the celebration in the locker room, everything you hear about that. But no one tells you how long people could really celebrate for,” Brunson said on Things No One Tells You podcast with Lindsay Czarniak (h/t Tommy Beer).
He said the hard part is making that mental shift on your own.
“I think people don't tell you that you have to find your own way to flip the switch, to figure out what comes next. You can't just, unless you're retiring, which I don't plan on retiring.
But we'll be glad to hear that. But no one told you the time and day when to turn the switch and start focusing on the next one,” he added.
For Brunson, that switch apparently flipped not long after the championship glow had time to settle in. He said the turning point came after his wrist surgery earlier last month, when he had tendons repaired because the injury was bothering him every time he shot.
“I've been there for a while since when I had surgery; that's when it clicked for me. It clicked for me that it was time to move on [from celebrating],” he further said.
The path forward for Brunson also comes with the same kind of expectations he has carried for years. After his Villanova run, where he won two NCAA National Championships in 2016 and 2018, he arrived with plenty of winning already on his résumé. He’s also been viewed as a player whose jersey could one day hang in the rafters at MSG once his career is over.
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