Grading Every Shot by Jalen Brunson in Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals
56 Video Views·Jul 29, 2026
It's been a long time since the Knicks last won an NBA championship. And in the final game of the 25/26 season, Jalen Brunson played his best basketball. So I decided to grade every shot he took in this game to see how he was able to do this
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Today we're going to be grading every shot by Jalen Brunson in Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals,
where he definitely had one of the greatest closeout games in NBA Finals history dropping
45 points shooting 14 for 27 from the field. Now I'm not only calling this one of the best
Finals closeout games in NBA history just because he dropped 45 points on great efficiency,
it's also because of how disgusting the Knicks offense was for pretty much the entire game.
Like I watched through this entire game and wouldn't see a good shot from the Knicks in
five or six minutes in quarters, and Jalen Brunson would have moments where he just puts
the team on his back and keeps them in the game. So today we're going to go ahead and grade all
27 shots and see the shot quality of these shots and see how much he really got it out the mud for
this Knicks team and see how he was able to drop 45 points on a team that features one of if not
the greatest defender of all time in Victor Wenminyama. But anyway, let's go ahead and get
into the first shot for Jalen Brunson in this game to where you're going to get a nice preview of
just how this Knicks offense looked throughout most of pretty much the entire game. And to be
honest with you, I don't really know how to describe the Knicks offense the entire game
without Jalen Brunson being involved, because now we're going to see Khaki, this is Mikel Bridges,
Wenby recovering here and the play is going to drive to the left. Mikel's got nowhere to go here,
nothing's going on, just going to give the ball back to Brunson. He had the ball seven seconds
ago and gave it away and nothing became of it. So now Brunson's got to make something out of
nothing and he's got five seconds left on the shot clock. And funny enough, if Brunson had
the pickest poison when choosing how to score, he would probably rather have Wenby guard him
than be sitting in the paint or be helping on the weak side. So he's got five seconds to make
something happy here, just throws up this touch shot, which is not a bad shot at all for having
five seconds on Wenby. And before we actually grade this shot, let me give you his numbers
on these kind of touch shots in the short mid-range. In the 2025-26 regular season,
he shot around 47% from this short mid-range area, so an area between five to 14 feet,
which puts him in the 63rd percentile, which is above average. But his frequency for point guards
in this area is so high at 34%, which is the 89th percentile. And that makes sense because we know
this is where Jalen Brunson makes his money. It's a really quality shot with a late shot clock. Now,
to be fair, he is a little off balance when actually making the shot at the end, but it's
not bad at all, man. I'm not going to give that like a seven out of 10. I think it's a pretty
quality shot for a late shot clock touch shot, but he just couldn't get that one to go. Up next,
we're going to see a rare wide open shot for this Knicks offense to where Kat's going to get this
ball in the post. He's being guarded by Fox right now. And I don't really see the point of Wenby
doubling here. Kat's all the way out here. If you want to make a contested jumper from a long two,
knock yourself out. But they're going to double team here. Kat's going to get this back out to
McHale. And as you could already tell, as I paused this, there is nobody on Brunson. There's really
nobody to get a path to Brunson here. The only way would be if Vassell sprinted over Brunson,
but then I would leave OG wide open cutting to the basket. So this is just fantastic spacing by
the Knicks and just kind of horrible defense from the Spurs. But Brunson's going to get a wide open
three, take an extra dribble, and he's going to knock it down. And from three point ranges here,
Brunson got up around seven a game and shot it at a 37% clip, which is really good. This is a wide
open three. He got to take all the time in the world for this one. So I'm feeling a seven or an
eight out of 10 on this one. We'll go ahead and give that one a seven and a 10 as well, but great
offense by the Knicks. But again, you are not going to see that very often throughout this game.
Next up, we have the Knicks bringing the ball quick, and Kelvin Johnson's just going to pick
up Brunson here, even though Castle or Harper should be guarding him. But Brunson's going to
go ahead and try to take this opportunity to score a one-on-one here. And I got to be honest,
he got a pretty low quality shot for Kelvin Johnson guarding him there. I'm not really a fan of the
shot. It's not super contested or anything. I thought it was a bit of a late contest, but still,
I don't love the shot. But we know Jalen Brunson is an elite mid-range scorer from long mid-range
shots, so anything 15 feet out. He shot around 53% from this area, which puts him in the 84th
percentile for guards or just for point guards. But his frequency in this area was 16% of his
shots, which put him in the 86th percentile for frequency. So he was definitely one of the most
elite mid-range scorers in the NBA this year. So I will respect his ability to make these kind of
shots, but it is definitely a bit of a tough one. I'm feeling a 4 or 5 out of 10 on this one. I
couldn't give it a 5. I don't think the contest was that crazy on it by Kelvin Johnson. I think
he just kind of missed it, but I don't love the shot. Another great preview of the Knicks offense,
not involving Jalen Brunson. And as you can see, most of the game plan by the Spurs is to deny
Jalen Brunson the ball as much as possible. Just seeing Dillon Harper front him all the way here
near half court because the Spurs are perfectly fine with playing four-on-four featuring any
other Knicks player outside of Brunson. So Hose is going to fall to the ground here. Just got
nothing going to give it to Brunson. Please save me. Brunson's going to try to go to work here,
get downhill, bump, get to the Eurostep floater, and just miss it. That's another great floater.
I like this one a little more now. He is kind of floating away from the basket when getting up. So
I think the shot itself is a bit tougher than the Wembley one. I think both of those floaters are
relatively the same. I'm going to give this one an 8 out of 10 just because the overall quality
of the shot was much higher than the previous one. It was also a late shot clock shot as well.
But as you can see so far, a very sloppy Knicks offense, yet Jalen Brunson is generating some
high-quality offense for his standards. Now he's going to get in the mid-post with Dylan Harper
Garner on 101. Going to get to a half-spin step-back right here. Super contested and
knocked that down. He just makes that kind of shot look easy. The shot's obviously beautiful
and I love watching it, but I'm not a fan of the shot. Of course, that's a really contested
step-back mini, but he got it to go. I'm feeling a 3 or 4 out of 10 on that shot. I'm going to give
it a 4 out of 10. Again, I'm going to respect his high-level ability to make mid-range shots,
so I have to respect it. But yeah, it's just not a great shot, but he got it to go.
Once again, the Knicks doing a great job just wasting clock to eventually give Brunson the
ball back. Jose's going to run a little pick and roll here with Mitchell Robinson. He's going to
snake the Robinson screen. It's going to lead to absolutely nothing here. Just going to give it
back to Brunson. And now Brunson's going to get the switch here as Jose Alvarado relocates his
screen. And now Brunson's going to get into a contested pull-up three here. Late shot clock
and get that to go. So this was obviously a grenade where he had to make something happen.
He got this ball near half-court with like seven seconds left, but he had to make something
happen. So I am going to give him a few extra points for it being a grenade, but man, that
is a contested three and he was able to knock that down. I'm feeling a 3 out of 10 on that one
and he got it to go. But again, if there wasn't a shot clock, that's probably a 2 or even a 1 out
of 10 shot for Brunson. That's a terrible shot. Now we got the Knicks bringing the ball up in
transition here and the Spurs just do a really bad job here of pointing out who's guarding who.
Like obviously, Cornette's got to get up here on Cat to establish he's guarding Cat. We know he
could shoot the ball. And since Vassell doesn't see Cornette, he's going to go ahead and pick
him up and leave Brunson wide open with Cornette guarding him. So Brunson's now going to attack
to the basket here, but shout out Vassell here at Stephon Castle. We're pricking Brunson up here
and he's going to get up a pretty contested lap. That is a very tough lap to try to get the go
there and he misses it. When it comes to shots at the rim this season for Jalen Brunson, he shot
at around 64%, which puts him in the 56th percentile for point guard. So right around average, but his
frequency was really low at 16%, which makes sense because we know Brunson does most of his work in
the mid range and he's also a small guard. So we know it can be tough, but that is a very tough
layup. I love the process of the shot, him getting downhill and Luke Cornette, but the shot itself
was bad. So I'm feeling a 3 or 4 out of 10 on that one. I'm going to call that one a 4 out of 10.
Now we haven't talked about anything specifically from the Knicks game plan wise to get Jalen
Brunson good shots, but if there's anything they were trying to do, it was setting screens early
in the shot clock to get him favorable matchups outside of Castle and Harper. And so you're going
to see Mikael try to set a screen here. He's not going to use it. He's going to work the ball up
the court here and then get set another screen here by Josh Hart to switch on the Kelvin Johnson.
And honestly, throughout watching this game, I thought the Spurs conceded a lot of switches or
conceded more switches than they should have, especially with how terrible this Knicks offense
look without Jalen Brunson. But anyway, he's now got Kelvin one-on-one here. He's going to drive
the left shot here and throw up this quick touch shot, which there's barely a contest there. He
just kind of misses it. I'm going to give that one an 8 out of 10. I think it's a pretty quality
floater. Again, just couldn't get it to go. Once again, some more late shot clock nonsense here.
Josh Hart with the pull with four seconds left. He's going to go ahead and pop this contested
three, step back three. He's going to miss it, but the offensive rebound by Mikael Bridges,
he just taps it out to Brunson. So an ugly possession gets Brunson a nice look from three,
and he's going to go ahead and knock it down. I'm feeling about a 5 or a 6 out of 10 on the
Super Bowl. So I'm going to go ahead and give it a 6 out of 10. I think it's a pretty solid shot.
It's amazing how balanced and collected Brunson is no matter who's guarding him and what kind of
contest they get. We're going to see him come around this McBride screen here, get downhill
on Fox, and just get this pull-up midi here at the elbow and knock it down. What a shot from
Brunson there. And as I just said, this is a pretty contested midi, but Brunson is cool,
calm, and collected and knocks it down. I'm feeling a 3 or 4 out of 10 on this one. I'm
going to go ahead and give that one a 4. I think it was, you know, not the best contest from Fox.
He didn't really get in his space like that, but still, it was a tough shot and he got it to go.
And as you can see, there is 4 minutes and 18 seconds left in the second quarter and the Knicks
have 26 points. I'm telling you, I have never seen so many bad shots taken by a basketball team in a
playoff situation compared to this one, man. It was really bad. It's not like the Knicks were just
missing shots. They just couldn't get a good one. And to be honest, I felt most of the screens set
by the Knicks to free up Brunson were pretty bad in this game as well. So Brunson had to go in and
get creative or hit him with the spin move to get downhill to the left side to force the switch.
He's going to drive downhill to the left side, pick up his jibble. He's got nothing for him right
there. Going to give it to McHale. And now he's going to get this ball back with 7 seconds left.
And Kelvin's kind of sagged off him here. The double comes over, but he shoots it right before
the double gets there. There's pretty much no contest on that shot and he gets it to go. It's
a great shot, especially for a guy about to be double teamed. A lot of these buggers for Brunson
are coming out the mud right now, especially for how bad this Knicks offense looks. And he gets it
to go. It's a great shot. I'm feeling a 7 or 8 out of 10 to be honest with you right there. I'm
going to go ahead and give that a 7 out of 10. That's a pretty high quality mid-range shot for
Brunson there. And if you're Kelvin Johnson, you just have to cover up the space, especially when
you have Victor Webb and Yama on the back line. You can deal with getting beat to the basket.
What you can have is Brunson shooting a wide open pull up mid because you don't want to get close
to him. Now we got Fox going to work on OG here, which I didn't grade all of his shots in this
final. So if you do want to check that out, it's my first video on this channel. But anyway, he's
going to miss the shot here. The Knicks are going to run in transition. And we've seen Brunson get
a couple open threes in this game, but it's come off some just random plays like transition buckets
like this, or just an offensive rebound. But he's going to get an open look in transition here and
kind of miss it. Now I'd probably give this a 6 or 7 out of 10 just on the quality of the shot,
but because he had a 3 on 2 fast break here, it could have made something happen. Either bounce
passes and McHale or lob it, just something like that, or maybe get it at the heart. Just anything
other than this shot. Although again, it's a high quality shot. For how bad this Knicks offense is,
look, you want to try to get somebody else going in this game. And Brunson does take that shot
again. It's a fine shot. So I'm going to give it a 5 out of 10. And as you can see after the first
half, this Knicks offense was disgusting really outside of McHale and Bridges and Brunson to where
Brunson goes 6 for 12 and scores 16 points. And to be honest, you're not seeing anything special by
the Spurs defense in this one. We are going to see their over physicality defensively start to
bite him in the back in the second half where Brunson gets to the line like 13 times. And also
Cat was in some serious foul trouble here. He had 4 fouls in the first half. He was terrible. So this
game really was all on Brunson to make something happen. And we're going to see the second half he
does. And his first shot of the second half is going to start with him taking this handoff
from Mitchell Robinson. He's going to get that in on Casalier and pull this super contested
hop step and just the sweet touch to get it in. But man, you want to talk about tough mid-range
scoring for a small guard. That is a tough shot. He just makes it look so easy. I'm feeling a 2 or
3 out of 10 on this one. I'm going to call that one a 2. I don't know, man. A 2 or 3. I'm going
to call that one a 3 out of 10. I'm really trying to respect his tough mid-range scoring because he
is a great mid-range scorer. I have a hard time giving him a 2 or a 1 on shots, especially when
he just looks that controlled on it. But you know, listen, man. Cas was doing his best. He's very
physical. We know that. Sometimes a little too physical. We got somebody actually setting Brunson
a good screen here. Mitch Robinson going to relocate right here. And honestly, based off
where Wenby was located, Mitchell probably should have tried to relocate to the left side here so
he can actually get a wide open pull up 3. But Brunson is still going to get a pretty good look
here pulling up for 3 right there off the Hesi. He is sadly going to miss this shot, but I think
that's a pretty quality look. I'm going to go ahead and give that one a 5 out of 10. I think
that shot's fine. Now we got Brunson working on Champagny one-on-one and he's going to get away
with the push off there. That was definitely an offensive foul. Nice voice crack by me and he gets
a pretty good look from mid-range to go from the elbow. So there should have been an offensive foul
here, but he gets a great look for himself and he gets it. I'm feeling a 6 or 7 out of 10 on that
mid-range shot. We'll go ahead and give that a 6 out of 10. I think it's a pretty quality mid-range
shot and yeah, I mean that's an offensive foul. We got some Jalen Brunson save us hoops here. 5
seconds up on the shot clock here. McHale's going to set up an off ball here. He's going to get the
handoff from Josh Hart so he's getting double screened. And it's great to see that's not
Victor Wenby on because Brunson's going to attack the basket and get this wide open layup for
himself there on Luke Cornett. I feel like I've seen a lot of people just underrate Brunson in
general, even after winning this championship. Like some people barely having this guy in their
top 10 or even outside of their top 10 after winning the championship. And I think the biggest
reason of that is he just makes some of this stuff look so easy. He's just so calm and collected and
he's a small guard, but he's not really a flashy small guard, right? He's going to have incredible
footwork and make some nice moves. But again, he just stays so calm for the moment and knows
exactly where he needs to be and he gets himself a wide open leg with 5 seconds up on the shot
clock. If I could give that shot a 12 out of 10, I would, but I'm going to go ahead and give that a
10 out of 10. What a fantastic shot in the late shot clock. We've got some more off ball action
for Brunson here, even though we know you're not going to see a lot of that from Brunson,
which makes sense. He's going to have the ball in his hands to make plays, but he's going to get
this pretty nice pull up three. I don't think that's a bad shot at all. He just misses it.
I'm feeling a five or six out of 10 on this one. I think it's going to be a six out of 10. I think
it's a pretty wide open three off the ball. He just couldn't get it to go. And also on catch
and shoot threes, he was around 40%. I believe in three, I'll get the number if I can find it,
but it's around that. So he was pretty good at that. So I'll give it a six out of 10. I think
it's a good shot. And as I said before, people don't rank Brunson as high as they should,
because he's just not a flashy player and he's a small guard. But when it comes time to make a
flashy play, he definitely does a pull up three over Webby. Gets fouled and should have been a
flagrant and ejected Webby from the game or game of Flakers. So he'd be suspended for game six,
even though it never happened in the first place. But he's going to get this super contested pull
up three to go over Webby. What an insane shot. And he gets injured. So I'm feeling a one or two
out of 10 on that shot. I'm going to give that one a one out of 10. It's a terrible shot, but man,
Brunson got it to go over Webby, man. What a crazy shot. We got more late shot clock activity
here with Brunson. And to be fair, the Knicks offense was terrible this game and would take
the entire shot clock just to find a bad shot. But there would be some possessions where Brunson
does hold the ball too long that it is going to happen in a half spin over a double team like
that as a tough shot. So I'm feeling like a two out of 10 or maybe even a three. I don't know.
He got some good space on Harvard there, but the second contest by Fox definitely made that harder.
So I'm going to give that one a three out of 10. It's a pretty tough shot and it was a late shot
as well. But again, I don't have the full context here if he had the ball like 10 seconds before.
We got Jalen Brunson doing an edit read impression, getting the pick. And any time Jalen Brunson
doesn't see Victor Wemenyama in that paint, he is going. And he does a great job getting
downhill here, but just can't get that layup to go. I don't think that was a bad look at
the basket at all. So I'm feeling a five or six out of 10 on that layup. I'm going to give it a
five. I think it's a five. Actually, I'll give it a six. I think it's a pretty quality layup.
He just couldn't get it to go. And again, you're not really seeing anything unique by this Knicks
offense to free up Brunson. A lot of this is just kind of Brunson, here's the ball, man,
do your thing. We might give you a good screen once every three minutes, but for the rest of
this game, it's all on you, man. So he's going to get downhill here with eight seconds left in the
quarter. And then just look at the pace from a small guard here to get a high quality shot over
Victor Wemenyama. He does miss the shot, but Jalen Brunson is just such a tough guy to time knowing
when he's going to take shots. And look how close Wemby is to Brunson right here with seven seconds
left in the game. And he's still able to get the shot over Wemby and generate a pretty quality
mid-range shot there. But we'll go ahead and give that shot a five out of 10. I think it's a fine
shot for what he was able to do here going up against two defenders. And listen, we can talk
all about the Knicks offense being terrible. Brunson's got like 30 points now. He's got almost
half the amount of points the Knicks have, but we of course know the story of this entire finals,
which was the Spurs inability to close games because the Knicks have a Jalen Brunson and
the Spurs don't. Although that was supposed to be De'Aaron Fox, you know, the guy you give the ball
to in the late moments to be able to get a shot, you know, clutch player of the year, all that kind
of stuff, just, you know, wasn't able to do it. And you're going to see a defensive game plan by
the Spurs that I don't like here, which is I don't mind Wemby guarding Cat. Like obviously that's
fine and it makes sense because of the size of the Spurs defensively, but I'd much rather him
guard Josh Hart so we can protect the paint more on a consistent basis. And now that Wemby's out
of the paint, he's going to get downhill with a nice movement. Just that little stutter step,
just head fake was enough to get Wemby to fall back to town. Like if Brunson takes a straight
line drive here, it just doesn't stop. Wemby is going to close his gap and try to defend this
layup. But this little stutter step by Brunson is just enough to get him to the basket and get a
clean look for a wide open layup. The details matter against a great defense and he is making
it happen right now. That is a 10 out of 10 shot for Brunson. What a great look. Next up, we're
going to see OG set a screen here, but Dylan Harper's going to ice here to keep him on the left
side. And now Brunson is going to be patient with the ball here and sit and wait to see what Harper
does because now OG's open. Or at least you got some numbers over here, four on three. So Harper's
going to fly back defensively and everyone's going to go cover whoever they got to cover,
which means Brunson has the shot blocker and Wemby right in front of him to make a move. And when it
comes to getting a bucket on a shot blocker, you got to get into his body and move him off his spot.
And that's exactly what Jalen Brunson is going to do here. It's just so hard to time this guy's
shot, man. And he makes it look so easy. That's going to be a nine out of 10 quality layup for
Jalen Brunson. And again, he got that on Victor Wemby-Nyama. It's just amazing. We got a two-point
game right now. The Spurs are blowing this game. They're going to turn the ball over here.
Everybody's scrambling on the floor. Brunson's going to get the ball. And once again, no Wemby
in that paint. I am getting to the basket and he finishes with a nice touch off the glass.
He's just so calculated with every single move he makes. He knows the personnel on the floor.
He knows who's guarding him. He knows the space he has to attack. And although he's taken his
fair share of tough shots, his ability to generate high quality looks when really nobody else in this
team is giving him anything. It's just fantastic. What a layup. I'm feeling a seven or an eight out
of 10 on that one. I'm going to go ahead and give that an eight out of 10, or actually I'll give it
a seven. It was a pretty tough layup off the tie off the glass. Now we got him working the poster.
I don't really love this shot, but it gets into a spin fade away off of Harper and he misses it.
I'm feeling a three out of 10 on that one. Yeah, I just don't love that shot. And listen,
it's late fourth quarter. Everybody's tired. So they're just going to kind of conceive this
switch here and have Vassell guarding Brunson instead of Castle, who by the way, did a great
job on it when he was actually guarding him. You see pretty much almost none of these shots were
on Castle. But to be fair, Castle did have some bad fouls on Brunson as well as Dylan Harper did
too, which led him to get 15 fritos in this game. But now Brunson's just going to dance here with
five seconds left. Nothing really happened here. Vassell playing some great defense and yeah,
that's just a bad shot. That was a great contest. He had the ball for plenty of time to try to
generate a high quality look. He got the switch he wanted to. So I'm feeling a one or two out of 10
on that shot. I'm going to go ahead and give that a one out of 10. I think it's a pretty bad shot.
So we just saw Brunson make a mistake, waste most of that shot clock to get a bad shot,
but Brunson's not going to make that same mistake again, going to attack downhill super fast early
in the shot clock. And then once again, it's just impossible the time when this guy's going to put
up shots when he didn't even get a hand up on that floater. Now to be honest with you, I think he
probably just should have had a hand up even though he did it, but he got this floater off off the
same foot, which is a tough floater to get guys like Maxi to this kind of floater all the time.
He doesn't have that insane special talent from small guards like super athletic speed or the
insane shot making of Steph Curry or, you know, the three point shooting, but man, there is not
too many small guards who make the game of basketball look this easy. And man, he just got
that floater to go. It's a great shot. I'm feeling a seven or an eight out of 10. I'm going to go
ahead and give that an eight out of 10. I think it's a great floater, especially for the moment.
And after putting together all the shots, he finished with an average shot score of 5.6 and
average made shot score of 6.1. So pretty close together. And a 5.6 for Brunson is like a slightly
contested mid range and a 6.1 is like a pretty open three for Brunson. And I think those numbers
are pretty on par with what we saw. So where, yes, I think guys like Dylan Harper and Steph
Castle defended him at a high level and made him take some tough shots and just also, you know,
forcing late shot clocks and not getting shots off at all. But Jalen Brunson is so elite at picking
his spots, knowing who's defending him, what point in the shot clock we are in, you know,
who's protecting the paint, whatever situation it is that his ability to play smart basketball
when he has pretty much nobody to play off of, nobody else is giving him any leverage to actually
do something offensively. And it's sad because he does so many things at a high level yet,
it just feels like he'll never get the full credit. Because as I've been saying, when you're
a small guard, you got to have that spectacular flashy thing about you, like with Steph Curry's
three point shooting, or if you're just a crazy athlete. But Jalen Brunson's game is just so calm,
cool, and collected. He just knows what to do in what time, which is the exact kind of player
the Spurs needed, but they just didn't have in this series, which obviously led to them losing
this day at so many leads. I think they had a double digit leader pretty much every single
game in this series. And again, that was supposed to be that guy in De'Aaron Fox,
who was terrible in this game, 315. Again, I graded all these shots if you want to go see
them, it was my first video. But I think the two biggest things to take away from this game,
and also just this finals in general, is obviously first how phenomenal Jalen Brunson was. And the
second thing is even though Wemby can still give you 25 to 30 points a game, just, you know,
doing whatever he wants and being the best defender on the court, he's still got a long
way to go when it comes to developing his game and being able to score in those closing moments
when the game really slows down. You just never saw Wemby taking a pot himself to go, okay,
listen, there's five minutes left. I'm going to catch this ball at the nail of the elbow.
Every single time in the possession is going to start with me. If I got one-on-one on me,
I'm just going to rise up and shoot this ball over Kato, whoever's guarding me, OG, whoever it is.
But if they come over to double team or send help, I'm going to give the rest of my guys levers to
generate high quality looks. But you pretty much never saw any of that. His mind's racing at a
million miles per hour. He's just not taking in the moment and slowing the game down. But shout
out to Spurs. It was obviously a phenomenal season for them. Nobody expected them to get to the
finals. But anyway, that's going to go ahead and do it. Hopefully after watching this game, you
brought it closer to your top five and outside the top 10. Subscribe to the channel if you're
new and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.