The gym lights buzzed like a hive of bees, low and persistent, as if they'd been holding their breath for hours. It was 3:17 a.m., and Lin Mo was alone—no scoreboard, no crowd, just the endless stretch of wood beneath his sneakers, its grain familiar as the back of his hand. He'd snuck in with the key LeBron had pressed into his palm two summers ago, when they were both nursing post-season losses. "For when the noise gets too loud to think," LeBron had said, grinning. "And trust me, kid—noise finds you."
Tonight, the noise wasn't outside. It was in his head: the rattle of Towns' screen slamming into his chest in Game 1, the sting of Edwards' laugh after stealing his pass in Game 2, the hollow thud of his final layup bouncing off the rim in Game 3. He'd replayed those moments so many times they'd frayed, like a thread rubbed raw between fingers.
He stopped at half-court, bouncing the ball once. The echo hit the walls and came back, thin and weak. This is it, he thought. No more chances. The series was 3-1, and if they lost Game 5, the season would unravel—no do-overs, no "next year." Joe's note burned in his pocket: "Scars are just stories the fabric tells." But what if the story ended here?
Lin Mo dribbled slowly, left to right, the ball heavy in his hands. He'd spent the first four games fighting the Timberwolves' chaos—their traps, their fast breaks, their trash talk—like a man trying to hold back a river with his bare hands. But rivers didn't stop because you fought them. They slowed when you channeled them.
He thought of Joe's sewing table, cluttered with half-finished projects. Once, when Lin Mo was 12, he'd tried to fix a tear in his favorite jacket, jamming the needle through the fabric in a panic. The stitch had bunched, then snapped. "You're not mending the tear," Joe had said, taking the jacket from him. "You're fighting the fabric. Let it move with you." Joe had threaded the needle, slow as breathing, and the stitch had glided through, smooth and strong.
Lin Mo cut left, sudden, then pivoted right—mimicking Edwards' crossover. Last game, he'd lunged, overeager, and Edwards had blown past him. But now, he stayed low, knees bent, eyes locked on Edwards' hips. He'd studied the tape: Edwards always shifted his weight to his left hip before crossing over, a tiny tell, like a thread looping wrong. Don't chase the fake, Lin Mo whispered. Wait for the real move.
He drove to the hoop, left hand guiding the ball, and instead of forcing a layup, he pulled back—slow—and passed to the corner, where Russell's ghost stood, arms outstretched. In Game 4, Russell had gone 0-for-5 from three, but Lin Mo knew why: he'd never gotten the ball in rhythm, always catching it mid-trap,仓促出手. "Feed him early," LeBron had grumbled in the locker room. "Let him breathe."
Lin Mo grabbed the ball, jogging back. His shoulders ached—200 layups a day in summer, 500 three-pointers after losses, the weight of every missed pass pressing down. But his hands were steady. He thought of the scratch on his shoe, how he'd sewn it: not to hide it, but to honor it. That scratch was where he'd learned—rushing breaks things, but patience mends them.
The gym clock ticked 4:30 a.m. Sunlight seeped through the windows, gilding the free-throw line. Lin Mo stepped up, bounced the ball three times, and shot. It swished, soft as a sigh.
He smiled, wiping sweat from his brow. The Timberwolves weren't a storm. They were a pattern—aggressive, predictable, and breakable. He just needed to stop fighting the pattern and start weaving with it.
One more layup, he decided. For Joe. For the stitch that held. For the last chance to make the fabric strong.