What Real Estate Agents Can Learn From the Knicks Winning on a Night They Couldnt Shoot

June 15, 2026

You Don’t Have to Play Perfectly. You Just Have to Play to the Final Buzzer.

The Knicks won their first title in 53 years while barely making a shot. Here’s what every real estate agent should take from how they did it.

This past Saturday night, the New York Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time since 1973. Fifty-three years of waiting. An entire generation of fans who never saw this team reach the top. On Saturday, in San Antonio, in the fifth game of the championship series, they won 94 to 90 and took the series four games to one.

I don’t follow basketball closely, and many of you don’t either. Stay with me anyway, because you do not need to care about sports to need this. The way they won is one of the best lessons in persistence and grit I have seen in years, and every piece of it lands on a real estate agent’s desk.

Here is the first thing you need to know: they did not win pretty.

In basketball, the whole point is to put the ball through the hoop for points. On Saturday, the Knicks could barely do it. As a team they missed nearly two of every three shots, making only about a third of their attempts. They fell behind by ten points in the first quarter and were still trailing into the final stretch. Turn on the television at halftime and you would have said, “That team does not look like a champion.” Nothing was working.

And they won anyway.

Sit with that, because it is the truest thing I can tell you about building a business. You will have nights, weeks, and entire quarters where your shot is not falling. The listing goes cold. The buyer ghosts you. The deal dies in attorney review. In those stretches, the quiet voice in your head says exactly what it would have said to anyone watching at halftime: this isn’t working, you aren’t good enough, sit down.

The champions heard that voice too. They missed most of their shots and lifted the trophy anyway.

Here is how they did it. Each player who pulled it off is a different agent in your office, and a different version of you.

Jalen Brunson and the Night You Carry the Team

The name everyone will remember is Jalen Brunson, the Knicks’ leader and the player the team is built around. On a night when almost no one could score, Brunson put up 45 points by himself. A strong night for a star is around 25 or 30. Brunson nearly doubled that, close to half of everything his team scored.

That is the highlight, and there will be days when it is you: the agent who is on fire, closing everything you touch while everyone else is slumping. When that is you, be Brunson. Take the shots. Carry the load.

But here is the heart of this message: Brunson’s 45 points are not why the Knicks won.

Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, and the Work Nobody Cheers For

Let me explain something about basketball, because it is the key to everything. Every time a player shoots and misses, the ball bounces loose and is up for grabs. Whoever grabs it keeps it for their team and gets to try to score again. That grab is called a rebound. A missed shot does not have to be the end of anything. Go get the loose ball and you have handed yourself a fresh chance to score.

On Saturday, two players made that their whole job. Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson refused to let a miss end the play. Robinson scored just 2 points all night but pulled down 10 rebounds, six of them off his own team’s misses. Hart added 13 points and 11 rebounds. The Knicks out-rebounded San Antonio 66 to 59, and those extra second chances are the real reason they won.

Not the flashy scoring. The quiet, unglamorous work of chasing down every miss.

Nobody chants Mitchell Robinson’s name. Grabbing a loose ball does not make the highlight reel. But it is the whole game. You know what this is, because you live it.

The missed shot is your unreturned call. The loose ball is the follow-up nobody else bothers to make. The second chance is the third call, the handwritten note, the door you knock after every other agent has gone home.

None of it gets celebrated at the awards banquet, and all of it is what turns a bad week into a closed deal.

Prospecting is rebounding. Follow-up is rebounding. The agents who win refuse to accept that a miss is the end of the play.

Karl-Anthony Towns and the Off Night That Still Counts

Here is my favorite part, and it has nothing to do with anyone playing well.

Karl-Anthony Towns is one of the Knicks’ biggest stars, a player who is supposed to score. On the most important night of his career, he made one shot out of seven and finished with 2 points. On paper, forgettable.

But Towns did not sit down and sulk. He grabbed 10 rebounds and added 3 steals, doing the dirty work while his scoring touch was gone. He could not contribute the way he wanted to, so he contributed the way he could.

And his team won the title.

That is the lesson for your slow stretch. When the listings stop coming and the closings dry up, you do not quit. You find the work still available to you: more calls, more follow-up, more open houses. The contribution you can make on an off day is still a contribution, and it still helps win the year.

OG Anunoby and the Defense You Never See

One more player is worth naming, because his contribution is the most invisible. OG Anunoby scored 11 points, but his real work was defense: 8 rebounds and 3 steals, taking the ball away before the other team could even shoot. Championships are won by teams that protect what they have as fiercely as they chase what they want.

In your business, defense means protecting the deals you already worked hard to create. Staying on top of a transaction so it does not fall apart at inspection. Making the check-in call to a past client that turns into a referral. Nobody throws you a party for the deal that did not collapse, but protecting your business is as valuable as growing it.

Down Ten, Then Winning the Fourth Quarter

The Knicks trailed for most of the night. A lesser team panics. They kept playing their game and trusted it would add up.

Being down early is January, the slow start when the numbers are not there and doubt creeps in. Winners do not panic when they are behind, because the first-quarter score is not the one that matters.

Then, in the final quarter, the Knicks outscored San Antonio 29 to 18 and took the title. They won it at the end, when it counted. That final stretch is the close, the fourth quarter of your year where the goal actually gets decided.

How you start does not determine the outcome. How you finish does.

Say It Out Loud

So here is what to carry into this week. Say these out loud, because the words we say out loud are the words we start to believe.

“I don’t have to play perfect. I just have to play to the final buzzer.”

“My misses don’t define me. My next shot does.”

“When my shot won’t fall, I go get the second chance.”

The Knicks waited fifty-three years and won it all on a night they could barely make a basket. They did it because one player carried them, two chased down every miss, a struggling star still did the dirty work, someone played defense nobody cheered for, and none of them panicked when behind.

Every one of those players is you, on any given day, in your business.

The big closing is the part everyone remembers. The follow-up nobody sees is the part that actually wins.

Off night, get on the boards. Slow month, get on the phones.

Now go get your second chance.

Get the latest real estate training tips delivered to your inbox!

Looking to take your business to the Next Level? Become a POWER AGENT® today! We provide a comprehensive package that includes affordable coaching, training, and customizable marketing tools for real estate professionals. Thousands of agents have transformed their careers with our proven methodology, seeing a significant boost in their listing inventory, solidifying their business operations, fostering lifelong client relationships, enhancing authenticity and confidence, reducing stress levels, and building rewarding careers and personal lives. 

Check out the POWER AGENT® PROGRAM here!