Even though the New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on Wednesday, 127-102, they still lead the series three games to two and are heading back home to Madison Square Garden for Game 6 on Friday.

Overall, Knicks star guard Jalen Brunson hasn’t played well in this series. But he has made his presence felt enough in the fourth quarters of the team’s three wins, and he was recently named the NBA’s Clutch Player of the Year after a number of strong performances in crunch time during the regular season.

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As much as anyone else in the league right now, Brunson looks to drive that proverbial dagger through the heart of the opposing team in the clutch. In fact, he has topped late Los Angeles Lakers great Kobe Bryant in total fourth-quarter points through the first 10 games of one postseason.

Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas gave Brunson some tremendous praise by comparing him to Bryant in the clutch department during a recent podcast.

“Jalen Brunson, mentally, is the closest thing to what Kobe was in the fourth quarter,” Arenas said. “No matter what happens, he can be 0 for 20 and in the last five minutes, you already know that, that window is different. He’s going to go 4 for 5, he’s going to put the team on his back and it’s hard to find that skill.”

Bryant had a number of playoff games where he struggled with his shooting for the first two to three quarters, only to come through in a big way in the fourth quarter. The most notable example was Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals, when he missed 14 of his first 17 shot attempts, only to be very efficient offensively for most of the second half and score 10 points in the fourth quarter. The Lakers overcame a 13-point third-quarter deficit in that game to win, 83-79, and claim their fifth world championship of the Bryant era.

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Brunson averaged 26.0 points and 7.3 assists a game in the regular season and was named a starter in the All-Star game. In last year’s playoffs, he reached the 40-point mark five times in 13 games, and he had a 40-point game this year in the first round and a 39-point effort in Game 4 versus Boston.

Game 6 may be a virtual must-win situation for the Knicks since Game 7 will be in Boston, even though Jayson Tatum, Boston’s best player, is out with a ruptured Achilles. Therefore, it may take a Bryant-like performance from Brunson to give them a victory and send them to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2000.

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Gilbert Arenas compares Knicks star Jalen Brunson to Lakers great