This is how great teams function under pressure.

The best teams have a specific set of strengths and areas of focus that they return to when pressure hits that have been previously defined and reinforced through their day-to-day.

MFs hope to experience a "coming-to-Jesus" moment under pressure where the veil is lifted and they become suddenly illuminated with the answer to their challenges. They have way too much confidence in their ability to "figure things out" on the fly.

This notion goes completely against the experience of pressure, which serves to cloud your thinking. And this is when people think they are going to experience their greatest moments of clarity!

The best teams have a clear sense of who they are and where their strengths lie. They accept that they will have glaring weaknesses and work to improve those, but will always return to executing their core strengths under pressure. Not only this, they generally have specific metrics to those strengths that are a bit more well-thought out than other teams.

When I was playing basketball, a really common metric that teams used during games was "we need to get three stops in a row." No shit, we should aim to get 300 stops in a row. But how are we getting those stops? What is the thing that our team can do relentlessly that is within our wheelhouse that will give us the best chance of getting a stop? Great teams always have these sorted.

Regardless of what arena a team is in, it's worth understanding where your team goes under pressure. If you don't like the answer, it's also worth doing something about it.