Jalen Brunson torched the Milwaukee Bucks on Christmas Day as he led the New York Knicks to a 129-122 victory at the Madison Square Garden. The Knicks guard exploded for a game-high 27 points in another majestic performance when the lights were the brightest.
For Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin, watching Brunson go off the way he did was anything but a surprise for him.
Milwaukee Bucks Coach Adrian Griffin Goes Way Back With Jalen Brunson
Griffin knows exactly the type of player Brunson is. In fact, the first-year Bucks coach had nothing but high praise for the Knicks star.
“He’s tough because he has all the nuances,” Griffin said, via Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports. “He knows how to draw fouls. He can shoot the 3 off the dribble. He has a pull-up off the bounce, and then he can finish at the rim. He’s a very high IQ player.”
Griffin and his coaching staff did all they could to prepare for Brunson. Sometimes, though, all the preparation just isn’t enough. This was exactly the case on Monday as Brunson dominated the Bucks, en route to exacting some revenge from their blowout loss against Milwaukee on Saturday.
Griffin knows Brunson all too well, though. In fact, the Bucks coach watched Jalen as a young boy being coached by his father, Rick Brunson, who now serves as an assistant for the Knicks.
“And he coached Jalen hard,” Griffin said of Rick Brunson. “I used to watch [Rick] all the time with Jalen, and Jalen was getting better. I looked at my kids and said, ‘I’m slacking. We gotta get in the gym.’”
Griffin has an NBA player for a son as well in AJ Griffin of the Atlanta Hawks, but he’s just not at the same level as Brunson. This isn’t a knock on AJ or his dad; it’s more of Jalen Brunson just being an elite talent who has found his way in the NBA.
Rick Brunson deserves a lot of credit, though.
“It’s a testament to all the hard work they put in together,” Griffin said.
More History
Before they both served in Tom Thibodeau’s coaching staff with the Chicago Bulls, Adrian Griffin and Rick Brunson actually went further back. They chased their basketball dreams together as youngsters, even teaming up for the Connecticut Pride of the CBA in the late 1990s.
“We’re really like brothers,” Griffin said of Rick as he recalled their time together as NBA hopefuls.
“… You got $20 per diem. Five-dollar breakfast. Five-dollar lunch. And then $10 for dinner, we’d splurge at, like, Bob Evans’ all you can eat.”
Neither Adrian nor Rick was able to really make an impact in the league as players, but their sons have both been blazing their own paths in the NBA, albeit at different levels. I’m pretty sure these proud fathers would not have wanted it any other way.
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