It couldn’t have been scripted better that Jalen Brunson, the 6-2 poster child for willpower and odds-defiance, had to go through a 7-4 Goliath in Victor Wembanyama to end the Knicks’ 53-year championship drought.

Throughout his four seasons as the face of the Knicks, critics questioned whether Brunson, in his undersized stature, was too small to be the leading man on a title-winning team.

That question never has to be asked again.

“I didn’t respond to them then,” Brunson said after the Knicks defeated Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals, “and I’m damn sure not going to respond to them now.”

The better questions now are where Brunson stands in the history of the Knicks and in the history of the NBA — debates that can’t truly be decided until the 29-year-old point guard’s career is complete.

But anybody still skeptical of Brunson’s greatness should consider the following:

Brunson’s 45 points in Game 5 of the NBA Finals tied him with Michael Jordan (Game 6, 1998) for the most by a visiting player in a championship-clinching win.

He scored 47.9% of the Knicks’ points in that 94-90 victory, the third most ever — behind only Jordan, twice — in a Finals-clinching game.

Brunson averaged 11.2 points in the fourth quarters of the Finals, the most in NBA history.

And Brunson scored 42.7% of the Knicks’ fourth-quarter points in the series, the most by any player in a Finals since his onetime teammate Dirk Nowitzki scored 43.7% of Dallas’ points during his prolific 2011 title run.

All of that helped Brunson become the eighth player to win an NBA championship, an NBA Finals MVP and a college championship (he won two at Villanova).

The others? Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, John Havlicek, Isiah Thomas and James Worthy.

Rarefied air, indeed.

“Everybody kind of mentions his name in passing,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said after the Game 5 win. “They don’t do it seriously enough. You know, people say, ‘He’s too small.’ People say he’s a 1B or a 2B or whatever. He is a freaking 1A. He is an MVP candidate.”

The Mavericks took Brunson with the No. 33 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, a selection that flew under the radar on the same night Dallas added Luka Doncic.

Brunson established himself as a steady role player, mostly off of the bench, during his first three seasons in Dallas, and he’s since said he was willing to accept a four-year, $55 million  extension with the Mavs ahead of his fourth season.

But the Mavericks wanted to wait, and Brunson’s value only increased as he performed well when pressed into starting duty — including in the playoffs — while Doncic sat with injuries.

When the Knicks signed Brunson to a four-year, $104 million contract in July of 2022, many analysts dismissed it as an overpay.

But Brunson has flourished in a primary role, averaging 26.3 points per game in his four seasons as a Knick. He earned an All-Star selection and second-team All-NBA honors in each of the past three years.

Brunson was named the Knicks’ captain in 2024, shortly after he left money on the table to sign a four-year, $156.5 million extension. Those cap savings helped team president Leon Rose build out the roster around him.

“I’m very fortunate to be in the position I am, and I definitely think I worked pretty hard, and so when the opportunity presented itself like it did [in Game 5], I just trust my work,” Brunson said after scoring 15 points in that game’s fourth quarter.

“And if we win, we win. If we don’t, we learn, we move forward. But I’m just never afraid to fail.”

It wasn’t a perfect Finals for Brunson, who shot 42.1% and averaged 3.8 turnovers per game against a dynamic Spurs unit featuring 6-6 stopper Stephon Castle in front of the shot-blocking Wembanyama, the unanimous NBA Defensive Player of the Year.

But Brunson averaged a series-best 32.6 points per game, and he made important shots in all five fourth quarters — no small feat considering the Knicks trailed in the fourth of every game.

Although Brunson is only four years into his Knicks career, there’s little debate he’s earned a spot on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore of all-time greats, alongside Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing.

That’s what leading the Knicks to their first championship since 1973 — when Frazier and Reed were the team’s headliners — can do.

“I’m gonna stop the argument, too. No disrespect, I love my son, [but] Patrick Ewing is the best Knick that I’ve ever witnessed,” assistant coach Rick Brunson, who was teammates with Ewing from 1999-2000, said on ESPN’s “Inside the NBA” after Game 5.

But Brunson’s résumé isn’t complete.

And these days, nobody’s betting against him.

“It always takes one person to believe in you,” Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns said. “This organization believed in him, and we believed in him. We were going to do whatever it takes to get him to the next level.”