{"id":716843,"date":"2026-04-23T23:07:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716843\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:07:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:07:33","slug":"jalen-brunson-is-being-exposed-and-it-could-be-on-knicks-to-save-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716843\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson is being exposed \u2014 and it could be on Knicks to save him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Knicks fans should know better than to needle a journalist. CJ McCollum, a journalism major at Lehigh before his rise to fringe NBA stardom, is the only Hawks player the Garden faithful shouldn\u2019t taunt. If you haven\u2019t figured it out by now,<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/21\/sports\/hawks-cj-mccollum-revelling-in-the-boos-as-gardens-latest-villian\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> he enjoys it. He\u2019s unfazed<\/a>. Sort of like the point guard the Hawks traded to acquire him \u2014 Trae Young.<\/p>\n<p>Jalen Johnson? He\u2019d probably wilt. Same with Onyeka Okongwu or Dyson Daniels. They\u2019ll be better at home, at State Farm Arena. But McCollum has been here before with the Blazers \u2014 check out the 37 points in his 2019 Game 7 against the Nuggets \u2014 and <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/20\/sports\/knicks-collapse-in-stunning-game-2-loss-to-let-hawks-even-series\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he did it again Monday night at the Garden<\/a>, killing New York with the crunch-time poise of a beat reporter on deadline.<\/p>\n<p>All self-promotion aside, it was a powerful performance Monday from McCollum as the fans attached his name to chanted obscenities. And as it unfolded, there was one very clear problem with the Knicks defense: Jalen Brunson.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.19766082;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39157218\" width=\"707\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/new-york-knicks-vs-atlanta-126119673.jpg\" alt=\"Atlanta Hawks guard CJ McCollum drives past New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson.\" class=\"wp-image-39157218\"  \/>CJ McCollum drives past Knicks guard Jalen Brunson in the first half of Game 2.<br \/>Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d McCollum asked a reporter when asked if he both hunted and liked the matchup against Brunson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knicks fans should know better than to needle a journalist. CJ McCollum, a journalism major at Lehigh before&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[208,7,7046,304,6,11,56381,1136,191,3810,3806,66,198,196],"class_list":{"0":"post-716843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cj-mccollum","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-playoffs","14":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkknicks","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-sports-columnists","21":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116456538127678900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}