The Knicks Won the NBA Finals Before the Games Ever Started

Like a lot of people, I’ve been watching the NBA Finals. But I haven’t just been watching basketball. I’ve been watching the nervous systems of the teams.

Photo by Patrick McDermott on Getty Images

As someone who spends my days helping leaders navigate difficult conversations, organizational change, conflict, and high-pressure situations, I see something in sports that often gets overlooked. At the highest levels of competition, talent is rarely the differentiator.

Everyone is talented. Everyone has trained. Everyone has put in the work.

What often separates winners from losers is whether they can access that talent when the pressure is at its highest. In my view, that’s the story of this year’s Finals.

Pressure Changes What We Can Access

The Spurs entered the series as favorites. They had talent, confidence, swagger, and plenty of people predicting they would win.

Early in the series, they looked like a team that expected victory. There were the mind games, the mean mugging, and the subtle psychological battles that often emerge when competitors believe they have the upper hand.

Then something unexpected happened. The Knicks refused to go away.

Again and again, New York found themselves behind. Again and again, they came back.

Each comeback forced the Spurs to confront a reality that didn’t fit the story they had been telling themselves. The team across from them wasn’t intimidated. The Knicks weren’t folding. The outcome wasn’t guaranteed.

As the pressure mounted, something else began to change in the Spurs. Not their talent. Their access to it.

What Happens When We Leave Our Window of Tolerance

One of the concepts I teach is called the Window of Tolerance. When we’re inside our Window, we have the capacity to manage stressors while staying regulated. When we are regulated, we can access our executive functioning, which allows us to make thoughtful decisions, solve problems, and respond intentionally rather than react impulsively.

When we blow our Window of Tolerance, our nervous system shifts into protection. We become reactive. The parts of our brain responsible for strategic thinking, creativity, perspective-taking, and complex decision-making become harder to access because our nervous system is prioritizing survival.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s biology.

The challenge is that many people don’t recognize it’s happening. They believe they’re seeing reality clearly when, in fact, they’re seeing things through the lens of a dysregulated nervous system.

When Things Get Fuzzy

One of the reasons I respect Victor Wembanyama’s post-game comments is because he appeared willing to acknowledge what happened. He described moments late in the game when things became “fuzzy.” He called the experience the biggest lesson of his life.

That’s not weakness. That’s awareness. And it’s an experience many of us recognize.

Maybe not on an NBA court. But in a boardroom. A difficult conversation. A presentation. A performance review. A medical appointment. A moment where the stakes suddenly become very real.

As I watched the Finals, I looked for signs that pressure was beginning to exceed capacity for the Spurs.

The increasingly emotional reactions. The moments where decision-making appeared reactive, like the play where Wembanyama threw the ball into the back of his own teammate with mere seconds left on the clock. The comments from the Spurs that neglected to acknowledge there was another highly capable team on the floor that ultimately out performed them. 

These observations point to a dysregulated nervous system. 

I see such struggles in leaders when their nervous systems become overwhelmed. Not because they’re incapable. Not because they’re unintelligent. Because pressure changes what they can access.

When our nervous system becomes dysregulated, we feel more certain while becoming less accurate. We stop seeing the full picture. We become attached to the story we are telling ourselves rather than adapting to the reality unfolding in front of us.

That’s one of the most important lessons pressure can teach us.

Confidence Isn’t the Same as Capacity

One of the themes that stood out to me throughout the series was the difference between confidence and capacity.

Confidence is valuable. But confidence alone can become fragile when it hasn’t been tested by meaningful adversity.

Capacity is different. Capacity is your ability to remain regulated when the pressure grows. It’s your ability to adjust when your assumptions prove wrong. It’s your ability to recover when things don’t go according to plan. It’s your ability to remain present when your nervous system is activated.

The very experiences that challenge our confidence can become the experiences that build our capacity, if we leverage it properly. Capacity is what sustains performance when confidence inevitably gets shaken.

Adversity Builds Capacity

The Knicks’ championship wasn’t built during the Finals. It was built in the setbacks that came before them in the last two years.

One of the things Coach Mike Brown referenced was how important adversity had been for this team. "I hope there's adversity…because we have to see if we're strong enough, when it comes to being connected, to see if we can get through it during the regular season, so when we get here [the playoffs], anything we run into, we've already conquered."

For fans, those moments during the season felt like problems. In hindsight, they were vital preparation. 

We often assume success builds confidence. And it can. But adversity builds something equally important, capacity to rebound. This is true for all life on this planet.

Leaders who never face meaningful setbacks often develop confidence without resilience. Teams that rarely encounter adversity may never learn how to recover when things stop going their way.

The setbacks the Knicks experienced this season built their recovery muscles. They learned how to come back. They learned how to adjust. They learned how to stay connected when circumstances became difficult.

That’s capacity. And capacity doesn’t appear overnight. It's developed through repeated cycles of challenge and recovery. 

This is why adversity alone doesn't build resilience. Plenty of people experience stress and become overwhelmed by it. What builds capacity is moving between activation and regulation. It’s a cyclical process of experiencing challenge, recovering, and then returning to challenge again with greater resources than before.

The Knicks didn't simply experience adversity throughout the season. They repeatedly found their way back from it. Every comeback, adjustment, and recovery strengthened their ability to handle the next challenge individually and collectively. 

Vagal Authority, the Hidden Leadership Advantage

Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re constantly reading the emotional and physiological state of the people around us. We notice tension. We notice calm. We notice confidence. We notice panic.

Our own nervous systems mirror what’s happening in others. This is why leadership is never just about strategy. Leadership is also about Vagal Authority.

A leader who becomes reactive under pressure often creates more reactivity in the people around them. A leader with Vagal Authority stays grounded, curious, and connected. And in doing so, they create conditions where other people can do the same.

What fascinated me throughout the playoffs was the combination of Mike Brown and Jalen Brunson.

As head coach and team captain, they appeared to provide a stabilizing force for the team. Not because they were perfect. Not because they never experienced stress. But because they consistently returned to regulation and stayed present. They consistently responded to the needs of the moment as pressure mounted rather than succumbing to fear.

When leaders remain regulated, people have greater trust. They communicate more effectively. They’re more collaborative. They’re capable of recovering after mistakes. They keep their executive functioning online.

Ultimately, this means they see things more realistically. And when the stakes are high, having a grounded sense of your circumstances is crucial.

Your Challenge, Should You Choose to Accept It

It's safe to say, none of us are preparing for the NBA Finals (please correct me if I’m wrong about that). But all of us have moments where the demands placed on us exceed our current capacity.

A difficult conversation. A conflict at work. A major decision. A family crisis. A health challenge. A presentation that suddenly feels much bigger than expected.

Those moments don’t test whether we have talent. They test whether we can access it.

Try to recall a recent moment when the pressure exceeded your capacity. And reflect on the experience. 

• What shifted in your body as the stressor took hold?

• What thoughts tend to go through your mind when overwhelmed by stress?

• How might you notice when you’re approaching your limit before reaching it?

• How did exceeding your capacity impact your behavior? 

The first step toward expanding capacity is to recognize what stressors blow your Window of Tolerance. When we can recognize the disconnect between our potential and our performance, we can begin building the resources, practices, and support systems that help us remain regulated when life inevitably gets hard.

Talent isn’t usually the first thing to disappear under pressure. Access to talent is.

Want More Insights Like This?

I write a weekly newsletter called Challenge Accepted for leaders who want to stay kind, clear, and courageous when tested.

Each week, I explore the intersection of leadership, neuroscience, communication, and nervous system capacity through stories, practical tools, and observations from the work I do with leaders and teams.

If this article made you think differently about performance under pressure, you'll probably enjoy the newsletter too.

Join me in Challenge Accepted.

If you’d like support expanding your capacity, I’m currently completing my certification in Relational Somatics and offering a limited number of discounted somatic coaching sessions, which you can book here.

Bring the stressor, challenge, or pattern that keeps knocking you out of your zone of effectiveness. Together, we’ll explore how to resource your nervous system, strengthen your capacity, and help you access more of your talent when it matters most.

Because talent isn’t usually the first thing to disappear under pressure. Access to talent is.

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