Down 29 points. In the NBA Finals. With the entire basketball world watching the Spurs run away with Game 4.

Then the Knicks did something nobody had ever seen at that stage of a championship series. They came back. The largest comeback in NBA Finals history, completed in real time, in front of a sold out Madison Square Garden.

After the game, someone asked Jalen Brunson, the soon to be Finals MVP, the obvious question. Did you think you had lost it? Did doubt creep in when you were down by almost 30?

His answer is the reason we are writing this blog.

"You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it."

That is not just a great sports quote. That is, almost word for word, a real therapeutic skill that mental health professionals teach to people struggling with anxiety every single day.

Why Trying Not to Think About It Never Works

Most people's instinct when anxiety shows up is to try to push the scary thought away. Do not think about it. Do not think about it. The problem is that this approach has been studied directly, and it backfires almost every time.

Research dating back to 1987 found that thought suppression is not a reliable or effective method of controlling mental experience, since people trying not to think about something specific ended up thinking about it more frequently as a result.

This is sometimes called the white bear effect, named after the original study where participants were told not to think about a white bear and could think of almost nothing else. The same thing happens with anxiety. Telling yourself not to think about the worst case scenario almost guarantees that the worst case scenario becomes the only thing your mind can find.

Brunson did the opposite. He let himself think about it. And then he moved.

The Real Skill Hiding Inside This Quote

What Brunson described almost perfectly matches a skill used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a structured therapeutic approach developed by psychologist Marsha Linehan, called Coping Ahead.

In Coping Ahead, a person pictures the worst case scenario and then pictures coping with it well, which converts anxious rumination into an actual plan of action. This changes the goal in a way that simply worrying about the problem never does, because rumination presents the appearance of solving a problem while not actually offering anything useful.

This is the part that matters most for anyone dealing with anxiety. Worry feels productive. It feels like you are doing something by running through every bad outcome over and over. But running the scenario in your head on a loop is not the same as preparing for it or addressing it. It is just suffering in advance, often without any plan attached.

When someone actually pictures coping with the feared scenario rather than just dreading it, the scenario typically loses much of its emotional intensity and becomes something to approach rather than something to avoid, largely because the person develops a stronger sense that they can actually handle what they are afraid of.

That is the difference between Brunson sitting there spiraling about a 29 point deficit and Brunson acknowledging the deficit, accepting it was real, and then walking back onto the court to do something about it one possession at a time.

What This Looks Like Off the Basketball Court

You do not have to be in an NBA Finals to use this. This applies to the presentation you are dreading at work, the diagnosis you are waiting to hear back about, the conversation you have been avoiding, or the general sense of dread that anxiety produces about a future that has not even happened yet.

Here is how to actually apply it:

Let yourself think the thought. Stop fighting it. Say the worst case scenario out loud or write it down. What is the actual thing you are afraid of?

Picture yourself handling it. Not avoiding it, not panicking through it. Actually picture yourself coping with it, step by step, the way Brunson pictured fighting for one possession at a time instead of trying to erase a 29 point deficit in a single play.

Take the smallest next action. Brunson did not solve the entire deficit in his head. He focused on the next defensive stop. The next shot. One possession. Anxiety wants you to solve the whole future right now. You only ever have to handle the next thing in front of you.

Notice that you survived thinking about it. This is the part that quietly rewires anxiety over time. Every time you let yourself think the scary thought and then take action instead of spiraling, your brain learns that the thought is not actually as dangerous as it felt.

When the Worst Case Scenario Feels Too Big to Cope Ahead With Alone

Sometimes anxiety is loud enough, persistent enough, or rooted deeply enough that doing this on your own does not feel possible. That is not a personal failure. That is exactly what therapy is for.

A therapist can help you build the Coping Ahead skill specifically for what you are facing, work through the anxious thought patterns that keep you stuck in the spiral instead of moving toward action, and help you build genuine confidence that you can handle what you are afraid of.

At Bluebird Therapy Center in New Jersey, we work with people facing exactly this kind of anxiety every day. We offer virtual therapy sessions for anyone across New Jersey, accept most major insurance plans, and offer a free 15-minute consultation with no pressure attached.

Book your free consultation today and start building your own version of going out there and doing something about it.

You Are Allowed to Think About It. Then You Have to Move.

That is the whole lesson, really. Anxiety is not the enemy. Getting stuck in it is.

Down 29 became the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history because someone let himself think the unthinkable and then refused to stay there. Whatever your version of being down 29 looks like right now, the same approach is available to you.

If you are in New Jersey and ready to build a real plan instead of just running the worst case scenario on a loop, Bluebird Therapy Center is here.