For years, championship basketball followed a familiar script. The first three quarters belonged to systems, playbooks and carefully designed actions. The fourth quarter belonged to one player. The ball found Michael Jordan in Chicago. It found Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles. And when the pressure became unbearable, entire arenas knew exactly where the next possession was headed.

Nearly two decades after Bryant helped define that formula, Tracy McGrady believes he sees the same pattern unfolding again in New York. On their Cousins podcast, McGrady didn’t need long to answer when Vince Carter asked which player from their era Jalen Brunson reminded him of when games tighten in the fourth quarter.

“If you want to do that, then you gotta look at Kobe,” McGrady said, “because for three quarters it was feed Shaq, get Shaq involved, and in the fourth quarter, you know, it’s Kobe time.” He then drew the line directly to the new champion: “The ball’s going to Jalen Brunson. He’s going to serve you. He’s going to deliver.” 

Brunson’s postseason surge placed him in elite company, as only five players in the play-by-play era have averaged more fourth-quarter points from the conference semifinals onward. One was Brunson himself in 2024. The others were Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant in 2003 and Michael Jordan in 1997.

McGrady’s opinion carries unusual weight in conversations involving Bryant. The Hall of Famer spent years battling Kobe during the league’s golden era of superstar shooting guards, and Bryant himself once called McGrady “the toughest player to guard.” That history is part of why his comparison resonated. McGrady wasn’t comparing playing styles. He was describing a responsibility. Brunson joined Bryant in 2008 and Stephen Curry in 2023 as the only players in the last 25 years to score at least 75 fourth-quarter points through their first seven playoff games.

McGrady’s explanation went beyond simple shot-making. “For three quarters, they feed Karl-Anthony Towns,” he said on the podcast. “But in the fourth quarter? The ball goes to number 11, and everyone else just clears out.” It was almost identical to how he described the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers, where Bryant became the offense’s final decision-maker once games reached winning time.

Brunson’s postseason numbers only strengthened McGrady’s case

The numbers that finished it off have since made the conversation harder to walk back. Jalen Brunson averaged 9.9 points per fourth quarter over the entire postseason, a mark only Dirk Nowitzki in 2011 matched in the play-by-play era while winning a championship.

In Game 5, the clincher, Brunson scored 45 points, 15 of them in the fourth quarter. It would be recalled that he played the final minutes on a painful foot after landing awkwardly on Victor Wembanyama.

The 2026 Finals were the only championship series in the last three decades where every game was within five points entering the final five minutes. The Knicks erased double-digit deficits in all five games and won four of them, repeatedly turning to Brunson when possessions became scarce.

Karl-Anthony Towns never sounded concerned by Brunson’s occasional cold stretches. “I see Captain Clutch doing what he’s always been doing since I got here,” Towns said during the Finals. “I see him hitting the free throws to win the game, hitting some of the craziest shots I’ve ever seen.”

That level of trust was exactly what McGrady was describing. Not a stylistic comparison. Not a statistical comparison. A championship team reaching the point where everyone in the building knows who is taking the biggest shot.

Tracy McGrady spent years watching Kobe Bryant operate as basketball’s ultimate fourth-quarter problem solver. When he sees Jalen Brunson commanding the same level of trust from teammates, coaches and opponents, the comparison isn’t rooted in nostalgia. It’s rooted in recognition. McGrady has seen what championship offenses look like when they eventually stop searching for answers and hand the game to one player. In Brunson, he believes he’s watching that formula work again.