During their takeover of “The Tonight Show” this week, the starting players for this year’s championship-winning New York Knicks team revealed which of them used to be “a little bit of a bully” in college.
Knicks starters Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges all won an NCAA championship together playing on the same Villanova team in 2016. A decade later, the trio won this year’s NBA Finals together with the Knicks. Reflecting on their long friendship, Bridges revealed that he and Hart were actually not friends when they first started playing together at Villanova.
“You want the truth? Josh was a bully,” Bridges told Jimmy Fallon. “After the bullying stage, that’s when we got real close. So, I guess I can appreciate the bullying a little bit.”
Fallon then turned to Hart, inquiring as to whether he had a “different version” of Bridges’ take on their friendship, to which the fan-favorite Knicks star replied: “Uh… no. I was a little bit of a bully.”
“I think I pushed him to the ground one time in practice, and then he was mad at me. I texted him after that practice, and then our friendship grew from there,” Hart explained. “I was like, ‘That’s my fault, bro. I was out of pocket on that one.’”
For his part, Fallon playfully confronted Hart about his habit of untying the “Tonight Show” host’s shoes when he is sitting courtside at Knicks games at Madison Square Garden, a tradition that began during the Knicks’ first playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers this year.
“On the court, I don’t look at you. You don’t look at me. You’re focused, which I totally understand. I don’t want to bother anybody, and so, I was just, like, rooting for you the whole game,” Fallon told Hart. “You didn’t say anything to me, whatever, and then you walk by and I thought you were fixing your sock or something. And you untied my shoe.”
“When I’m on the court, like, I’m locked in. But once I step off the court, I like just having fun, man,” Hart shared. “I saw you and I was just like, ‘You know what? Let me mess with Jimmy a little bit.’ So I untied the shoe and I was like, ‘Alright, now that’s our thing.’”
The Knicks won that 76ers game. In fact, they went on to win every game in which Hart untied Fallon’s shoes this year, including the Knicks’ Game 4 NBA Finals battle against the San Antonio Spurs, a match-up that saw the Knicks successfully erase the Spurs’ 29-point lead to seal a nail-biting clutch-time win.
“I was there with my daughter [at] the comeback, and she was like, ‘Dad, do you think they can come back?’” Fallon recalled. “I go, ‘It’s possible. You know what? Untie my shoe, like Josh.’ She untied my shoe, and I think that’s why you guys won.”
