During Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Max Strus drove to the paint, and Jalen Brunson jumped to contest his shot. Instead of trying to block the shot, Brunson jumped backward, and his hands went backward.Matt Fraschilla recognized an old Villanova teaching point immediately.“Hands back,” explained Fraschilla, who spent five years on Jay Wright’s staff at Villanova and was a graduate assistant on the 2018 Villanova team that won a national title with Brunson and Mikal Bridges. “It’s a little bit like jumping for verticality except we would jump backwards so that they couldn’t create contact and they always would lose kind of their balance or their ability to elevate.”Strus hung onto the ball longer than he usually would, allowing Karl-Anthony Towns to block his shot, and Fraschilla immediately grabbed his phone and sent a text to Wright.“JB still doing hands back eight years into the league as an All-Star is incredible,” Fraschilla said. “It’s testament to Coach’s impact. We had a lot of things at Villanova that were basically a technique or terminology that was pretty ingrained into the culture, and a lot of it wasn’t commonplace.”That stuff is showing up on the NBA’s biggest stage now, as the Knicks, led by three former Villanova teammates in Brunson, Bridges and Josh Hart, are one win away from winning the franchise’s first title since 1973.Villanova emerged as the best program in college basketball in the late 2010s, winning titles in 2016 (with Hart, Brunson and Bridges) and 2018 (with Brunson and Bridges). Those who witnessed that run are not surprised at what’s happening now.When the Knicks signed Brunson in 2022 and then acquired Hart and Bridges via two trades on Feb. 9, 2023, their former teammates could see something special taking shape.“They all know how to play off one another,” said Phil Booth, who played for Villanova from 2014 through 2019 and was teammates with all three. “When you’ve been through so much together for so many years, you have a different level of connectivity that these guys have now. It was just like, man, it had to work. There’s no way it couldn’t work.”That greatest comeback in NBA Finals history on Wednesday night in Madison Square Garden was reminiscent of watching those Villanova teams.Former Xavier coach Chris Mack once said of Brunson that if you took his face off, he would probably have wires coming out of it. Brunson was always stoic, never letting the game’s emotions affect his play.Villanova’s 2016 title was won on one of the greatest buzzer-beaters in the history of the sport, a 25-footer from Kris Jenkins that had NRG Stadium delirious, much like MSG on Wednesday, but if you watch Wright after that shot goes in, he simply walks down the sideline emotionless to shake the hand of North Carolina coach Roy Williams. When the Knicks won on Wednesday, Brunson barely reacted while everyone around him went crazy.That levelheadedness allowed the team to rally from a 29-point deficit.“When things are going against them, they don’t show too much body language,” said Matt Kennedy, a former Villanova walk-on, several days before the historic comeback. “The big thing at Villanova was attitude, and don’t show your emotion. I think that’s what’s allowed them to come back in a lot of games, that mindset and attitude; you can’t really break them. They’re just gonna keep coming and coming and coming at you.“Coach Wright just lived it, and you kind of didn’t have a choice.”And Brunson?“If he set out to do something, he would do it,” Fraschilla said. “He would refuse to not allow it to happen.”Wright, who retired in 2022, was one of the best in the world at teaching simple fundamentals that translated to beautiful basketball. Villanova’s pregame warmups were the basketball version of those old Tom Emanski baseball skills videos. Wright drilled playing off two feet, jump-stopping and pivoting.All three were present during one of the most aesthetically pleasing possessions of this postseason, an extremely Nova-esque sequence with multiple paint touches, everyone playing off two feet and continuing to draw two to the ball and then kicking it out until a great shot emerged.This is quintessential five-out offense, extremely difficult to guard because of the spacing and presence of five shooters on the floor.“Man,” Booth said, “it all looks real familiar.”Booth said Wright would harp on the little details of the game, and executing those simple fundamentals became a part of their basketball DNA as they got older. “When you’re successful with it, and you win championships with it,” Booth said, “you really believe in it.”Stylistically, Wright was ahead of the curve in the modern game. He was one of the first to play small-ball, which these Knicks do. He was ahead of the 3-point revolution. His 2018 team actually attempted more 3s than 2s during its NCAA Tournament run, and from the 2013-14 season through his retirement in 2022, his teams took more than 40 percent of their shots from deep. The Knicks, who were slightly below the league average in 3-point rate, did lead the league in 3-point field-goal percentage, a result of not just the quality of shooters on the team but also the quality of shots.“(Wright) always taught us that you’re most open when you catch the ball, so always catch the ball ready to shoot,” Booth said. “That caught people off guard, the way we shoot the ball. Then after that, you can shot fake, play off your jump shot.”Booth is now a basketball operations associate with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and one of his roles is college scouting. Wright was also elite at player evaluations. Between his two title teams, Brunson and Omari Spellman were the only top-20 recruits, and Booth leans on what he learned about the type of people Wright brought in.“Character was a big thing,” Booth said.Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges were all part of the celebration after Kris Jenkins’ game-winner over North Carolina in 2016. (Scott Halleran / Getty Images)Bridges, who ranked 96th in his recruiting class, redshirted as a freshman but worked like he was playing every game. Kennedy used to return at night with Bridges to get up shots. Once Bridges was eligible, he would show up four hours ahead of tip-off to work.“A lot of the groundwork that he got that year really just paid dividends and allowed him to kind of rapidly improve the following years,” Kennedy said. “And then even as he got good, and even to this day in the league, the dude just never misses a game. On days off, he’s getting massages and treatment, and he’s willing to drive an hour to go get a special treatment because his knee hurts. He’s never, ever, ever cutting corners.”Bridges has not missed a game in six of his eight NBA seasons.Hart was admired in the program because of his tenacity. Now, in the NBA, he’s known as a hustle guy who is an elite rebounder at 6-5.“He had a work ethic too, but more so than most guys, he had the ability to just kind of turn it on,” Kennedy said. “Mikal could score on him twice or beat him on a back cut, and then all of a sudden his intensity would just go up to a level. He could just get to another gear, and he just was not gonna be stopped. He’s probably the most competitive guy that I was around during my time at Nova.”Then there’s Brunson, who Kennedy said had a “maniacal” work ethic.“He was incredibly dedicated to his habits, and his habits were not just basketball habits,” Fraschilla said. “It was how he slept, how he ate, the way he took care of his body. Other than maybe our walk-ons, I think he might’ve had the highest GPA on our team.”Brunson maintained a routine that also amazed his teammates. He often had late-night workouts with his dad, current Knicks assistant Rick Brunson. That required a certain intensity that was non-negotiable, and Fraschilla said Brunson would never let up even though he had already practiced, already lifted and knew he’d be returning for hot yoga at 6 a.m. the next morning.The walk-ons and Fraschilla would often help rebound or play defense during those workouts, and they could see the work paying off, as Brunson went from averaging 9.6 points on the 2016 title team as a freshman to more than doubling his production as a junior when he won National Player of the Year and Villanova won a second title.“Jalen’s ability to just kind of take whatever criticism it was and then process it and fix whatever he needed to fix was really, really, really good,” Kennedy said. “You could almost see it before your eyes, his improvement in whatever he was working on at a pretty rapid rate.”Then, he was off to study.Kennedy said he’d often find Brunson after those workouts in the film room doing his schoolwork. “The guy is always going,” he said.His teammates respected Brunson for that, but also for how he treated them.“When I met him for the first time, I was kind of taken aback because he was just so normal,” Kennedy said. “A lot of times, as a walk-on, you go meet the guys who are big time, and they shake your hand, but they don’t look you in the eye or whatever. It doesn’t bother you. These kids are highly touted high schoolers. But Jalen was just like this really, really thoughtful, nice guy. It almost seemed weird how nice he was and just how level-headed he was. … Even when he was National Player of the Year, he didn’t all of a sudden become like this cool kid, like, ‘Oh, I’m Jalen Brunson, and I got more trophies than anybody here.’ Every year, Jalen was getting more and more publicity and praise, but he didn’t change.”When Brunson got married in the summer of 2023, it wasn’t just his former scholarship teammates in attendance; Fraschilla and the walk-ons were there. Kennedy, who lives in Manhattan, has had a family pass to the Knicks games for a few years. First from former Villanova/Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo, then Hart and now Bridges, who was the best man in his wedding and lives five minutes from him.Kennedy has been to all but one playoff game during this run and was joined for Games 2 and 3 of the Finals by Booth.They say their old teammates do not act any differently on the verge of being NBA champs. Bridges will still give Kennedy a hard time for having to go to bed early, acting shocked if he FaceTimes past 9:30 p.m. and Kennedy is awake. The core of those Villanova teams still plays fantasy football together.Now, they’re all rooting for the Knicks, taking pride in what the Villanova program helped create.Wright has not done any media during this run, but his influence is obvious to those who witnessed it firsthand.“(Wright) said it at the time when he was coaching these guys, I’m teaching you guys this stuff because when you get to the NBA you’re gonna be able to play a different style,” Fraschilla said. “They didn’t have to change when they got to the NBA. The stuff that made them really good at Villanova is the stuff that’s making them really great as NBA players, which I think is a really cool testament to Coach Wright and his philosophy.”