{"id":744780,"date":"2026-05-26T22:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/744780\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T22:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:21:15","slug":"becky-hammon-stands-by-her-small-player-take-as-jalen-brunson-lifts-knicks-to-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/744780\/","title":{"rendered":"Becky Hammon stands by her ‘small player’ take as Jalen Brunson lifts Knicks to NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon didn\u2019t completely back down from her assertion a small player can\u2019t lead his team to the NBA championship now that Jalen Brunson has taken the New York Knicks to the NBA Finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hammon made her initial comments on ESPN in December 2023, saying the Knicks couldn\u2019t win the championship if the 6-foot-2 Brunson was their best player.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your best player is small, you\u2019re not winning,\u201d Hammon said at the time.<\/p>\n

Those comments have generated some buzz after Brunson received the Larry Bird Trophy<\/a> for MVP of the Eastern Conference finals after the Knicks swept the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night. He averaged 25.5 points and 7.8 assists in the series.<\/p>\n

The Knicks will face defending champion Oklahoma City<\/a> or San Antonio in the finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak from experience,\u201d Hammon said Tuesday. \u201cAllen Iverson got MVP and he lost in the finals. I think the two best teams are probably in the West, but I\u2019m up for being proven wrong. That\u2019s the other thing, I think Jalen Brunson\u2019s a hell of a player, a hell of a player. I\u2019m speaking historically on the NBA with what I said. I don\u2019t know why everybody\u2019s so stuck on that. I said it two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said what I said. If he proves me wrong, he proves me wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hammon, who has coached the Aces to three of the past four WNBA championships<\/a>, has a clear rooting interested in the NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n

The Hall of Famer played for the San Antonio Silver Stars \u2014 who eventually moved to Las Vegas and became the Aces \u2014 and later was a Spurs assistant under coach Gregg Popovich.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, you know who I\u2019m cheering for,\u201d Hammon said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon didn\u2019t completely back down from her assertion a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6170,7,3375,193,3349,288,6,446,1220,11,662,1136,7295,191,26187,578,16,586,310,66,2098,582],"class_list":["post-744780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-allen-iverson","tag-basketball","tag-becky-hammon","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-gregg-popovich","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-nevada","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-nv-state-wire","tag-oh-state-wire","tag-ohio","tag-ok-state-wire","tag-oklahoma","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116643213059518313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744780","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=744780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}