Three days before the finals, the boy's message carried a crackle, like he was trying not to cry: "The doctor won't let me go to the arena. Says the crowd noise might spike my blood pressure, and…" The text cut off, followed by a photo: his prosthetic knee, swollen red around the edge, the gel patch from earlier crumpled beside it. "But I marked every outward tilt of Towns' knee—17 times, all in the fourth quarter. Made a timeline. You'll ace it."
Lin Mo opened the file. On the dense timeline, red circles pulsed with the game footage, each annotated with a tiny "!" or "?"—the boy second-guessing himself, even now. At 4:12 in the third quarter of Game 3, the arc of Towns' right knee jutting out as he picked up the ball perfectly matched the angle of the boy's prosthetic in his rehab records from last week, when he'd texted, "Felt like my knee was gonna pop." The system suddenly prompted: [Emotional resonance node detected: Similar limb compensation patterns. Subject (Lin Mo) heart rate elevated by 15 bpm].
"I asked the team doctor to send stronger gel patches—they'll stick better." As he typed, Lin Mo deleted "Stop watching footage" three times, finally settling on: "Watch the 7:23 mark in the fourth quarter—he'll repeat that move. But only if you're sitting comfortably. No leaning forward, okay? Your back'll hurt."
In the training gym, Lin Mo had the team simulate the Timberwolves' fast breaks. When a backup guard imitated Miller's moves, Booker suddenly called a timeout: "His sock slipped!" Lin Mo nodded, but his phone buzzed—another photo from the boy: his wheelchair's armrest, now dented, with a note: "Towns' tilt at 7:23 is exactly when my prosthetic locks loudest. You'll hear it. I mean—you'll see it."
Late at night, a message from the boy arrived—a sketch of a tactical board, with a tiny wheelchair drawn next to Towns' position in pencil, the lines shaky where he'd pressed too hard. "That 1-centimeter tilt is enough for you to get past him. Promise I'm in bed. The lamp's on, though. For… ambiance."
Moonlight outside fell on Lin Mo's tactical notebook, where a wheelchair was also drawn, with a note: Foul after the seventh dribble. Beside it, he added, softer: Tell him to turn off the lamp.