Jalen Brunson brought several of his New York Knicks teammates into the spotlight while hosting the Season 52 premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” turning part of his appearance into a celebration of the team’s championship run.
During his opening monologue, Brunson joked about his approach to hosting by comparing the show to the Knicks’ performance in the NBA Finals.
“Tonight, I’m going to approach hosting the same way as I approached the Knicks’ Finals games,” the NBA champ told the live audience Saturday.
“The first three-quarters of the show are going to be god-awful; the last sketch is going to be amazing,” Brunson, 30, added.
Brunson later took questions from the audience, where teammates Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart were waiting to participate.
Towns used the opportunity to joke about his tendency to get into foul trouble, asking Brunson if he could “foul out of ‘SNL.’”
After Brunson told him that would not happen, Towns responded: “So I could be here like the whole show? Nice.”
Anunoby also joined the exchange by reminding Brunson of a memorable moment from the Knicks’ championship run.
“Remember in Game 4, when you took that shot at the end and missed it?”
“Yeah, you tipped it in,” the point guard replied, with Anunoby answering, “Oh yeah, that was awesome.”
After appearing in several sketches alongside musical guest Katseye, Brunson closed the episode by saying he was “going to get back to my real job pretty soon.”
The appearance made Brunson the first Knicks basketball star to host “SNL.”
