The Grizzlies players had finally concluded their valiant campaign in Oakland.
Now, it was time to go home.
Early the morning after Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, everyone on the flight back to Memphis had fallen asleep from exhaustion.
Only Link remained awake, staring out the window.
It was not that the clouds were particularly beautiful today. He simply hurt too much to sleep.
Unable to sleep, Link could only keep thinking.
Come to think of it, the Grizzlies had a very good chance of eliminating the Warriors 4-1. If they really pulled it off, Link would still find it quite unexpected.
The Warriors had come on strong this season. They were the first team in years capable of threatening the Grizzlies' position atop the Western Conference, and Link had long prepared himself to battle them through a Game 7 in the playoffs.
But on closer thought, crushing the Warriors 4-1 would actually make perfect sense.
This Warriors team was still somewhat different from the one in the original history. The biggest difference was their "main man," Andre Iguodala, who was now on the Grizzlies' side.
Though Iguodala had been fairly unremarkable during the regular season, in the playoffs—especially in crucial moments—he had repeatedly saved the Warriors from disaster. Everyone knew that Iguodala's value could not be measured by statistics. He was an indispensable part of the Warriors' championship run.
But now, that stabilizing pillar of the Warriors was gone. So whenever the Splash Brothers ran into a situation they could not handle, the Warriors were left completely lost.
Besides the Iguodala factor, the Warriors had not been as lucky as they were in the original history.
Link still remembered how ridiculously lucky the Warriors had been in those playoffs, as if they had stepped in dog shit.