‘Saturday Night Live’: The Knicks crash Jalen Brunson’s monologue, Natalie Harp interrupts a Trump-Mamdani meeting, and more best moments

Fresh off leading the New York Knicks to their first NBA championship in 53 years, Jalen Brunson took another victory lap at Studio 8H. The NBA point guard hosted the Season 52 premiere of Saturday Night Live alongside musical guest Katseye. It was Brunson's first time hosting SNL.

Although Brunson was presented with the key to the city after the Knicks' big win, he found there was one door that key didn't unlock — and it just so happened to lead to the SNL stage:

Here are the best moments from Brunson's SNL debut:

El Niño couldn't stop President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) from visiting his best friend (at least to him), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (Ramy Youssef). While the mayor had a lot of important work ahead of him, Trump had nothing but time on his hands to cut it up with his favorite public official, whose relationship he likens to "one of those unlikely animal friendships." Also braving the weather was the president's obsessive, rain-soaked assistant, Natalie Harp (Ashley Padilla), who promised to end Zohran if he hurt Trump. Desperate to get $11 billion for a new housing project, Mayor Mamdani promised to follow Trump back on Instagram (if only real life lawmaking were so easy).

Jalen Brunson promised to host SNL the same way he played an NBA playoff game: by being absolutely terrible for three quarters before pulling off a victory in the end. For Brunson, the most satisfactory thing about bringing the New York Knicks their first NBA championship since 1973 was proving all of his haters wrong, including ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith (Kenan Thompson), who came to publicly apologize. Brunson then took questions from the audience, which happened to include his fellow Knicks players Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Josh Hart, all of whom took to the stage to rapturous applause from the New York audience.

Brunson poked fun at his basketball skills as Darius, an office worker who has trouble throwing a fast food wrapper into the waste basket. His coworkers (Mikey Day, Johnson, Ben Marshall, and Sarah Sherman) become increasingly embarrassed as he unsuccessfully throws one wrapper onto the floor after another. Turns out Darius is actually Brunson, who has always dreamed of working a menial job yet can't stop until he finally makes a basket. As Brunson often does in a real NBA game, he finally scored a goal.

When nerdy Brunson shows up at the high school gym, no one wants him to join the basketball team except for Jeremy Culhane, who loves to sing and dance as much as he loves shooting hoops. Unfortunately for Culhane, Brunson is better at balling than he looks, and frequently uses his teammates head as a bounce board. Culhane decides to give up basketball and audition for the high school musical instead, which is perfect considering he's fallen in love with classmate Veronika Slowikowska. Turns out Brunson is a pretty good singer too, and steals poor Jeremy's girlfriend away from him with a love song.

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson (Culhane) stopped by the Weekend Update desk to comment on this summers record-breaking box office, which included Spider-Man: Brand New Day, or as he liked to call it, "Brand New Gender" ("Spider- they ?"). He also had harsh words for breakout hit Obsession, decrying that, "the left's idea of a horror movie is a woman forced to love a man." And let's not forget Toy Story 5, which tells kids, "you've got a friend in me, and his name is... Woody?"

Brunson is the first person to host Saturday Night Live 's 52nd season. Next up on the SNL stage will be Dakota Johnson (with musical guest Turnstile) on Oct. 3; Shane Gillis (with musical guest Rosalía) on Oct. 10; and Inde Navarrette (with musical guest Gracie Abrams) on Oct. 31. SNL just won another Emmy in September, bringing its record-holding total to 114.

SNL added two new featured players to its roster for Season 52: Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter. All of the Season 51 cast members are returning except for Chloe Fineman (plus Bowen Yang, who departed after the Christmas episode). Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline have been promoted to repertory players this season.