TIPOFF

The San Antonio Spurs led the Knicks by 29 points in Game 4 of the NBA playoffs. They lost.

Three nights later, they lost again, and the series with it.

Here's what actually happened, because it has very little to do with basketball.

The Spurs had a story that only worked when the shots were falling. They hit 17 threes, built the lead, and looked unbeatable. Then the shooting cooled, and there was no second story. No backup plan. The lead was gone, and so were they.

The Knicks had something different. Not a hot streak. An identity.

Down 29, they didn't start hunting hero shots or reinventing themselves at halftime. They ran the same defense they always run, just cleaner, until the math turned. They won that game by a single point. Then they closed the series on the road, shooting 35.6 percent, which is genuinely ugly, and won anyway. Because the identity didn't depend on the shots falling.

I watched a version of this happen at Bank of America in 2011.

The bank was preparing to launch a $5 monthly fee for debit card purchases. In a huge conference room outlining the communications plan, I argued for a landing page that would plainly tell the majority of our customers that the fee wouldn't affect them if they had direct deposit of their paychecks, a certain minimum balance, or a BofA credit card . Get ahead of it. Have the second story ready before the shooting cooled.

The head of the consumer bank overruled me. If we get backlash, he said, we'll explain the exemptions then. And don't worry about the Internet. It won't be a problem. I started to tell him he was wrong. Then my boss kicked me, hard, under the table.

It was the whole problem, even in 2011. A 22-year-old named Molly Katchpole started an online petition to kill the fee. It drew more than 300,000 signatures. Twenty-one thousand customers pledged to close their accounts. It reached the Senate floor. Five weeks after the announcement, the bank reversed itself.

Big bank. Great products. Loyal customer base. That was a 29-point lead built on a good shooting night. But with the debit fee, there was no second story. No backup plan. And a senior, capable leader who mistook a friendly room for an identity that would hold.

The investor update. The board letter. The all-hands after a quarter you'd rather not explain. That's the moment you find out whether you built positioning or got lucky.

Brand Garbage is the messaging that only holds up on a good day. Communications Windex is what clears it, so the story still stands when the shots stop falling.

The test is simple. If your positioning only works when the buyer is already sold, it isn't positioning. It's a hot streak. And hot streaks end in the second half.

CANDOR IS A PROMISE...AND A DEBT

Syracuse University's new president opened his enrollment message with a promise. He'd be candid.

Give him credit for the parts most leaders skip. He didn't bury the deficit or dress the bad news as a strategic pivot. He told his people this was a moment for urgency, not panic, which is the right thing to say and a hard thing to mean.

Then the number never came. The message named every headwind, the demographic cliff, visa policy, the toughest competition for students in modern U.S. history, all of it outside his control. What was never named was the size of the enrollment miss or the resulting deficit. The reporter covering it caught the gap and flagged it twice.​

Candor is a debt. The moment you use the word, you owe the reader the specific that proves it, and the bill comes due in the next sentence. Promise candor, then withhold the figure, and you haven't softened the bad news. You've taught people to discount the good news that comes next.

Move that into a room you know: the investor update, the board letter, the all-hands after a quarter you'd rather not explain. The second you write "let me be candid," your CFO stops reading for tone and starts hunting for the number. If it isn't there, the word didn't pay its debt. It went deeper into the red.

So pay it. Three ways:

1. Name the number, even when it's ugly. Especially then.
2. Name the decision you made, not the resolve you feel. "Institutional resolve" is Brand Garbage in a nicer suit.
3. Name what you got wrong before you name what was outside your control.

One other "candid" idea: Talk about the solutions you're considering and invite your audience to suggest ideas. For example, I'm a Syracuse grad, and so was my dad. Tell me you'd offer my graduating senior a big discount on the school's Estimated Cost of Attendance ($95,676, which in this economy could be a reason for plummeting enrollment), and you might make me an even stronger advocate

Candor was never the hard part. Paying for it is.

When was the last time you wrote "let me be candid" and then actually named the number?

THREE SMART POSTS FROM THREE SMART PEOPLE

1. Better Prompting Advice: The best AI users eventually stop writing prompts from scratch and build assistants instead, says Andy Crestodina. In this post, Andy shows you how to build a simple "Prompt Writing Assistant."​

2. Colin and Samir Built the Room YouTube Needed: Before they became the creator economy's brain trust, they were two guys making lacrosse videos and going broke. What turned it around wasn't a bigger audience. It was a narrower one. Tommy Geoco's 28-minute documentary on the pair is worth your time, even if you're not on YouTube.

3. How Do I Get Started? Are you one of those people who bookmark tutorials for projects you plan to get to soon/someday? I certainly am, and Justin Welsh is. But he's got a new approach you might want to try. He writes about it in Your New Rabbit Hole.

HOW CAN I HELP?

As communications professionals and business owners, we often rush from one project to the next, leaving little time for reflection. However, taking a moment to analyze our work can be invaluable. Gini Dietrich's influential Spin Sucks blog published my article on the importance of communications post-mortems. In it, I explore how these retrospectives can significantly improve future projects, whether conducted internally or with an external facilitator. Curious about how to implement this practice effectively? Check out the full article here to unlock insights that could transform your next communications initiative. Reach out if I can help facilitate it.

PROMPTS ARE QUESTIONS TOO

So much tiresome back-and-forth on LinkedIn about using AI to write. Whether you use it or not for writing, here's a prompt you might want to try if you're writing for yourself (or your company) without the benefit of an editor:

Step back and read this like a tough but fair editor. One who’s allergic to fluff, suspicious of clichés, and always looking out for the reader. What assumptions don’t hold up? Where does the logic wobble? What parts drag, ramble, or sound like I fell in love with my own words (it happens)? What would make someone stop reading—or stop trusting me? Be specific, be sharp—but keep the red pen warm, not cruel.

I welcome your comments or suggestions for future issues. Drop me a note here. If you found this on LinkedIn or had it forwarded to you, you can subscribe by clicking the button below.