The film room's AC hummed like a nervous heartbeat, and Lin Mo's eyes burned. It was 2 a.m., two days before Game 1, and the screen glowed with Luka Doncic's face—smirking, sweating, calculating. He'd watched 17 hours of tape in 48 hours: Doncic's playoff games, his regular-season matchups against the Lakers, even a clip of him playing pickup in Slovenia at 16, where he'd faked out three defenders with the same slow crossover.
"Obsessed much?" Russell said, poking his head in with a protein shake.
Lin Mo didn't look up. "He's not just a player. He's a system." He hit rewind on a play from the Mavs' second-round series: Doncic dribbled circles around a defender, then, just when everyone expected a shot, he flipped a no-look pass to Kleber cutting backdoor. The ball threaded through a gap no wider than a needle's eye.
"See that?" Lin Mo said, pausing. "His left eyebrow twitches when he's gonna pass. Look—" He slowed it frame by frame: Doncic's brow flickered, a micro-expression, before the ball left his hands. "Tells. Like a thread looping wrong. You just gotta know where to look."
Russell leaned in, sipping his shake. "What else?"
"His step-back. Watch his right foot. He plants it heel-first when he's gonna shoot, toe-first when he's gonna drive. And when he uses a screen, he always brushes the screener's shoulder with his left hand—like he's checking if they're in the right spot. If he doesn't brush? It's a fake screen. He's gonna pull up."
Lin Mo flipped to a clip of Doncic against the Suns, where he'd scored 45 points. "Third quarter, he gets lazy with his defense. Leans on screens, doesn't chase. We can exploit that—push the pace when he's on the floor, make him run."
Russell nodded, but his smile faded. "He's 25 and plays like he's 10 years in the league. You sure you can keep up?"
Lin Mo thought of Joe's sewing box, where a half-finished quilt lay—each square a different fabric, but stitched together so tight they felt like one. "He's got 10 years of tricks. I've got 10 years of learning how to fix what breaks." He hit play again, eyes locked on Doncic's feet. The tape never lied. And neither would the hours.