Toronto, Canada, Anta Center.
The visitors' locker room.
Popovich continued, "Facing the most powerful guy in NBA history, I can't be absolutely sure we'll win either. But what I can teach you is to roll up your sleeves and get to work."
"While dealing with that guy Wang Yi, I learned an old Chinese saying: Do everything in your power, then leave the rest to fate."
"What that means is, we give 200% effort to get something done. Whether we succeed or not, we leave that to God. But first, we have to give that 200%!"
Seeing that he had more or less calmed everyone down, Popovich gave the assistant coach beside him a meaningful look.
The assistant coach continued to fire the team up.
On the current coaching staff, Popo was better at soothing the players when their spirits were low, while the assistant coach was better at rousing them when they were calm.
A moment later, once everyone was fired up, Popovich picked up his marker again and began drawing up the second-half plays on the tactics board.
Meanwhile, in the Raptors' locker room,
the players were quite excited.
With a 3–2 lead in the series, they were up by 15 at halftime in Game 6. They were just 24 minutes away from claiming the championship again. How could they not be excited?
But amid all that excitement, Wang Yi remained completely calm.
The rookie Locke gulped down a few mouthfuls of water, then excitedly went over to Wang Yi and asked:
"Boss, we're up by 15 at halftime. Why do you look like we're down by 15?"
Wang Yi shook his head. "Knowing that old fox Popovich, after going into halftime down 15, he'll definitely come up with some other trick."
"Being up by 15 at halftime