Dallas' training room smelled like rubbing alcohol. Lin Mo iced his shoulder—Doncic's screen had left a bruise, purple and green, like a bad stitch.
Davis laughed, pointing at it. "He's mad. Good."
Lin Mo smiled. "Mad makes him careless."
Game 4 loomed, and the Mavs would be desperate—down 2-1, facing elimination in front of their home crowd. Lin Mo's notebook had a new entry: Doncic's mad tells: faster dribble, no patience, more iso. Force him into bad shots.
LeBron limped in, icing his knee. "Old man legs," he joked, but Lin Mo saw the worry in his eyes. LeBron had played 40 minutes in Game 3, his minutes piling up.
"I'll take Doncic more in Q1-Q3," Lin Mo said. "Save your legs for the fourth."
LeBron raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
Lin Mo tapped the thimble. "I've got him."
That night, he couldn't sleep. He watched Game 3's final play on his phone: his crossover, Doncic stumbling, the layup. It wasn't luck. It was every hour of tape, every practice drill, every stitch he'd sewn—strong enough to hold.
He thought of Joe's quilt, hanging in his old room: a mess of fabrics, but stitched so tight it had lasted 10 years. This team? They were that quilt. Bruised, tired, but held together by something stronger than talent.
Belief.