The flight back to LA hit turbulence over New Mexico, and Lin Mo's shoulder throbbed in time with the plane's jolts. He peeled back the ice pack—bruise blooming from indigo to eggplant, spiderwebbing down his bicep like a bad watercolor. Across the aisle, LeBron's eyes were closed, but his thumb tapped a rhythm on his knee, same as it did before tip-off. No one was sleeping.
The locker room at Crypto.com Arena smelled like lemon disinfectant and leftover Gatorade, but the energy was thick as molasses. Game 4's confetti still clung to the rafters, but now it looked like tattered streamers, not celebration. Davis stared at his shoes, scuffing a thumb over a scuff mark. Russell flipped a ball between his hands, too hard, like he was trying to crack it.
"A 3-1 lead's a ghost," Coach Ham said, slamming a clipboard down. "You think it's there, but it'll slip through your fingers if you don't clamp down." He nodded at Lin Mo. "Luka's been in the film room since last night. He's not gonna let this end easy."
Lin Mo's notebook was dog-eared, pages filled with scrawl: Doncic: left shoulder dips before cross-court pass. Feet: right toe points inward on fadeaways. Breaths: heavy after 3rd quarter, tires faster on back-to-backs. But now the words blurred, smearing like rain on glass. He thought of Joe's quilt—how she'd kept a thimble in her mouth while stitching, the metal warm from her breath, so she wouldn't bite her lip raw.
Practice was a funeral with sneakers. No "yo mama" jokes from Russell, no Davis grumbling about sprints. They ran Mavs' pick-and-roll sets until the floor gleamed with sweat, Lin Mo shadowing Vincent—who'd studied Doncic's film so hard he'd started squinting like him, left eye slightly narrower than the right.
"His crossover's slower now," Vincent panted, faking left, then right, just like Luka. "Like he's waiting for you to overcommit."
Lin Mo planted, knees burning, and swatted at the ball. It grazed his fingertips. "He's not slow. He's patient."
That night, he sat on his apartment floor, spreading Joe's quilt over his legs. The fabric was thin in spots, where she'd stitched and restitched—over a coffee stain, a tear from the dog, a fray where the dryer had chewed it. His dad had sent it after Game 3, folded in a box with a note: Sutures hold best when they're tight, but not too tight.
He texted his dad: Got the thimble.
The reply came in two minutes: Joe's last quilt? She cried over the final stitch. Said it felt like letting go. But you don't let go when it matters.