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I was up late Saturday night, watching the final seconds tick off a 94–90 game. And well past midnight, I just sat there with it. Fifty-three years. That is how long it had been since the New York Knicks last won an NBA championship. And now, finally, they had done it again.
Go New York, Go New York, Go!
That chant will be echoing across the Big Apple for days, and for good reason. I remember the last two championships well. I was a big fan then. Admittedly, I have not been as much of one since. For me, professional basketball changed over the years. It began to feel less like a team game and more like a street game, with too much isolation, too much ball-hogging, and not enough trust. That is one reason so many people still love college basketball. Teamwork is easier to see.
But this Knicks team was different. Since Jalen Brunson arrived, something shifted. And this year, under Mike Brown, that shift became something bigger. It was not an accident that the Knicks surrounded Brunson with players who knew how to win together. It was not an accident that they valued players who wore effort, toughness, and integrity on their sleeves. You saw it in the way Josh Hart dove for every loose ball like it was Game 7, in the way OG Anunoby guarded whoever needed guarding without complaint, in the way nobody on that roster seemed to care who got the credit, as long as somebody did. Talent matters. But trust is what holds a team together when pressure shows up.
And the pressure showed up. Viewed through the lens of the Automatic Brain and the Mind, this Knicks run offers a powerful lesson. The Automatic Brain is always scanning for threat. It is the part of us that reacts quickly when we feel vulnerable, exposed, or outmatched. It does not wait for the whole picture. It sounds the alarm.
Down 2–1 to Atlanta, the collective Automatic Brain could have said: We are not good enough. We do not belong here. Same old Knicks. Down 22 late against Cleveland, it could have said: This is over. Down 29 against San Antonio, with Victor Wembanyama towering over the court like a modern-day Goliath, it could have said: We are too small. They are too much. There is no way back.
That is what the Automatic Brain does. It takes a difficult circumstance and tries to turn it into a final conclusion. But the Mind does something different.
The Mind does not need to deny reality. The Knicks were down 22. They were down 29. The mountain was real. But the Mind does not stare at the mountain and become paralyzed by it. It looks at the next possession. The next defensive stop. The next rebound. The next good shot. The next right action.
That is how daunting comebacks happen. Not by obsessing over the scoreboard, but by refusing to let the scoreboard define the next step. This is the same lesson many of us need in our own lives. We look at the distance between where we are and where we want to be, and the Automatic Brain jumps in with its familiar warnings: Too late. Too hard. Who do you think you are?
And because the feeling is so strong, we assume it must be telling the truth. But fear is rarely a reliable scoreboard. It often exaggerates the deficit and underestimates our capacity to respond. The Knicks did not win because they were never afraid, never tired, or never overwhelmed. They won because they kept playing through those moments. They stayed connected. They trusted each other. They adjusted. They acted. That is the Mind at work.
Sports and culture give us shared stories because they dramatize what happens inside all of us. A team falls behind. A city loses hope. A player misses. A coach adjusts. Someone makes the next right play. And suddenly, what looked impossible begins to change. That is why a game can matter beyond the game itself. It reminds us that the score is not always the story, the reaction is not always the truth, and the deficit is not always destiny.
Sometimes the Automatic Brain says, “You are finished.” And sometimes the Mind answers, “Just take the next step.”
Saturday night, with San Antonio still within reach in the fourth quarter, that is exactly what New York did. Not a miracle. Not some sudden surge of belief. Just the next stop, the next rebound, the next bucket, one after another, until the clock hit zero, the final score read 94–90, and it was real.
Go New York, Go New York, Go.
And maybe, for the rest of us, the chant is this:
Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.
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