Becky Hammon’s ‘Too Small’ Claim Collapses as Jalen Brunson Delivers Knicks’ First Title in 53 Years

Jalen Brunson spent his entire playoff run proving one thing: Size isn’t everything. On Saturday night, he made sure nobody would forget it.

The 6-foot-2 guard dropped 45 points in Game 5 — including a fourth-quarter clinic — to lead the New York Knicks past the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 at Frost Bank Center. It sealed the franchise’s first NBA championship since 1973 and earned Brunson the Finals MVP trophy. But the stat line only tells part of the story.

The rest belongs to Becky Hammon.

The Las Vegas Aces head coach and former Spurs assistant made waves in December 2023 when she told ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins that Brunson couldn’t lead a team to a title. Her reasoning? He’s too small. “If your best player is small, you’re not winning,” she said during a televised debate. The only exception she allowed was Stephen Curry.

Brunson averaged 32.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 2.0 steals across the Finals. He shot 14-of-27 from the floor in the clincher, went 13-of-15 from the free-throw line, and buried multiple clutch baskets in the final minutes. The Knicks trailed by as many as eight in the second half before grinding the Spurs down.

Fans online did not let the moment pass quietly. “The fact that Becky Hammon was a Spurs assistant coach makes this so poetic,” wrote one user. Another asked, “Becky, where ya at, homegirl?” The jokes kept coming: “It’s a bad day to be Becky Hammon,” posted another fan, while a fourth demanded, “Someone get a microphone in front of Becky Hammon. I need to hear her thoughts on Lord Brunson.”

Hammon had doubled down on her original take before the Finals, though she admitted she was willing to be proven wrong. Brunson obliged. His 45-point outburst in a championship-clinching game stands as one of the most dominant individual performances in recent Finals history — and a direct rebuke of the idea that undersized guards can’t carry a team to the mountaintop.

The irony cuts deep: Hammon spent years as a Spurs assistant under Gregg Popovich, the very team Brunson just dismantled. She built a Hall of Fame WNBA career as an un-drafted 5-foot-6 guard who became a six-time All-Star. That she became the poster child for dismissing a similarly undersized player only made the backlash more intense.

For the Knicks, the title ends a half-century drought. For Brunson, it cements his status as one of the league’s most unguardable scorers. And for Hammon? She just became the most famous example of why you should never tell a small guard what he can’t do.