A raucous crowd at Little Caesars Arena showered Jalen Brunson in boos anytime he touched the ball. After he swiped Tim Hardaway Jr. in the face on a close-out in the first quarter, the fans started a chant that rang around the arena whenever Brunson stepped to the free-throw line: "F**k-you-Brun-son!"
After the Knicks got the last laugh with a 118-116 win -- with Brunson scoring 30 points for the third time in three games this series -- their star point guard was asked if he's ever played in a building that was as hostile in his direction as the one he walked into Thursday night.
"In the NBA, no," Brunson said. "I give them a lot of credit. They made that environment special for their home team. We just found a way to win the game, but that was definitely a lot, so you gotta give a lot of credit to that fan base."
Brunson became a target for taunting in Detroit after he headlined the first two games in New York by hunting fouls on offense and sometimes flopping to get to the line.
Asked about getting jeered, he said, "It’s just another way to get me focused and stay composed and stay poised, just another obstacle. And then knowing that my teammates have my back, it’s nothing."
Brunson made a few key buckets down the stretch, including back-to-back driving layups to stretch a three-point lead to seven with just under a minute to go.
He finished with 30 points, 9 assists, seven rebounds and just one turnover, outplaying Pistons star Cade Cunningham who had 24 points, 11 assists, seven rebounds -- and six turnovers. Brunson was 9-for-20 from the field, while Cunningham was 10-for-25.
Despite the loss, Cunningham called it "amazing to have playoff basketball back in Detroit."
"You can tell everyone’s been waiting for it," he said. "There was a lot of great energy in there that we fed off of. The ball just didn’t bounce our way at times. I wouldn’t say we were (too) geeked up. We knew it was going to be a lot of energy in there. The Garden has a lot of energy, all these games are going to be high intensity, a lot of fans, a lot of noise, so that’s not what shook us up.
"Ball just didn’t go in the rim, and it will on Sunday."