Do you want the ball when it matters? What Jalen Brunson can teach business leaders to be the clutch

With the match at stake, the New York Knicks goalkeeper Jalen Brunson did not start. He did not hesitate or did not look for someone else to exhaust the moment. He wanted the ball.

We often hear the expression “wanting the ball” in sport. But Thursday evening in Detroit, with four seconds to play and the scoring equally 113-113, Brunson did not just want the shot – he asked. When he obtained it, he has delivered one of the most decisive plans that the NBA has seen in recent years, eliminating a world class defender, then launching a three -point pointer who eliminated the pistons from the playoffs and lifted the Knicks in the next round.

New York head coach Tom Thibodeau said it best. “Jalen is at his best when his best is necessary.” This is the very definition of the clutch.

We live in a world – in business, in life and on the field and other sports arenas – where pressure has a way to show who you can count on. When the final presentation is due, the customer is on the fence or your team is at his last blow, who goes up? It is easy to direct when there is no dashboard.

But the inheritance is forged in a few moments of consequence.

Brunson's buzzer -battery has not only won the victory – he won respect for one of the most embedded players in the history of the NBA. “When it was time to win, Jalen Brunson scored 40 points, including three winners who were set up by one of the most incredible cross dribbles that I have ever seen”, ” Magic Johnson noted after the match. It is rare air. When Magic Johnson talks about the performance of a player in clutch time, we must all take notes.

In business, we often confuse high performance with reliability. But as the contributor and expert in Transition of Forbes recently wrote, there is a difference between people who can play and those who must perform. “Incredible individuals and teams only bring together incredible records not to fail when we expect the least,” he wrote. “Although they may have had great strengths, a great leadership and great preparation, they did not deliver this project, this responsibility, at that time, in the clutch.”

Bradt's ideas on clutch time winners reveal. These people present themselves with five decisive characteristics: concentration, discipline, adaptability, presence and balancing hunger for success and fear of failure. When others hope that someone else takes the final blow, clutch artists demand it. Not for the ego, but because they feel responsibility. They are prepared, which shows that they care more.

Brunson occurs when it matters, so much so that Alan Hahn d'Espn compared it to the last baseball. “It has become what New York remembers Mariano Rivera like – the closest to the history of baseball”, ” Hahn said about Brunson Friday. “You know who gets the ball. And you can't do anything about it.”

This is what business leaders should always endeavor to be. You want to be the person for which your team looks at when there is no room for the error, when the pressure is highest, just as the Knicks know that Brunson can bring them to victory.

Last week, Brunson was appointed clutch player for the NBA year and for good reasons. Coach Thibodeau reminded everyone of how Brunson intensified at the end of the games throughout the season. “He did it all year round,” said Thibodeau. “This is what makes him special.”

What really separates from others were his comments after the victory over the pistons. He did not linger on the big blow. Instead, he was already focused on the defending champion Boston Celtics who awaits the Knicks in the next round. “We then play the reigning champions, so it will be very different,” said Brunson. “They have experience.”

It is the state of mind of a real competitor, being proud to win but to remain locked up in the greatest mission. Each organization needs people who can lead in the clutch – who, like Brunson, want the ball when the stakes are the highest. Closing when it counts is an infallible way to build an inheritance.