January was the first winter this team faced.
The cold came not only from the blizzards outside Boston's windows, but also from the long schedule's erosion of the roster. Consecutive road trips began to freeze and crack the most vulnerable parts of the Celtics' makeshift lineup.
Thirty-four-year-old Dominique Wilkins was the first whose body flashed warning signs. In the second games of back-to-backs, his knees, Achilles tendons, and lower back took turns sounding alarms over strain, and his shooting touch became intermittent. Robert Parish's stamina had long since become insufficient for the demands of starting at center, leaving all the dirty work inside on the shoulders of Magic Johnson and P.J. Brown. The packed schedule left the two young big men heavy-legged.
Meanwhile, Sam Cassell, a young player truly shouldering the responsibilities of a starting point guard for the first time in his career, suffered his first wave of turnovers after taking on too much of both the playmaking and finishing.
From mid-January until All-Star Weekend, the Celtics endured a miserable stretch of just two wins in seven games.
The local media quickly caught wind. All those polite compliments about how they "didn't understand it, but were deeply impressed" reversed direction overnight.
The Boston Herald ran a blunt headline: "Lin Qi's 'general store' finally exposed."
The Boston Globe published columns titled "Wilkins is no cornerstone, Cassell is not yet a leader" and "The 41-year-old Old Chief cannot save everyone."
Lin Qi spread the newspapers across his desk and read them calmly. He did not get angry. He knew perfectly well this day would come sooner or later. Under the wear and tear of a long regular season, this lightweight, aging roster had physical and technical limitations it simply could not avoid.
What truly brought the tensions inside the locker room into the open, however, was an All-Star roster.
When that year's All-Star starters and reserves were announced, Dominique Wilkins's name was left off. It was the first time in his career since returning from his major Achilles injury that he had been shut out of the NBA All-Star Game. At thirty-four, his streak of consecutive All-Star selections came to a definitive end.
Although his averages of 18.5 points and 5.1 rebounds were hardly poor, and his isolation scoring remained a threat in crucial moments, the national media's verdict was cold and unanimous: he was old, he no longer possessed All-Star-level dominance, and he was now merely a veteran with respectable production.
In the locker room, the young players began carefully avoiding any All-Star-related subjects around Wilkins. To them, it was already remarkable that their veteran teammate could put up those numbers after such a serious injury.
But that polite "consideration" became an invisible sting to a superstar who had spent more than a decade brimming with pride.
A few days later, the Celtics hosted a middle-of-the-pack team.
From the opening tip, Wilkins looked extremely aggressive. Throughout the game, he obsessively demanded the ball in the low post and midrange, forcing isolation attempts against defenders again and again. He put up a frantic twenty-seven shots and scored a personal season-high thirty-one points.
The Celtics, however, lost.
His emotionally driven fixation on isolation plays completely destroyed the passing-and-cutting rhythm head coach Ford had worked so hard to establish. Cassell lost the space to drive and kick out of pick-and-rolls, Dino Radja could not get the ball in the low post, and the two long-range guns, Wesley Person and Dana Barros, were reduced to background figures standing on the perimeter to space the floor.
After the final buzzer, when the locker room door slammed shut, the air inside instantly dropped to freezing.
Cassell was the first to lose control of his emotions. He tore off his wristband and hurled it onto the floor. The sound was not loud, but it was clearly audible in the silent room.
"There's more than one guy on this team who can score."
Those words instantly ignited the long-suppressed tension.
Wilkins jerked his head up. The veteran, who had always been accustomed to letting his play do the talking, braced his hands on his knees and stood straight up this time, his gaze icy. "What are you muttering over there?"
"I said," Cassell stood as well, his neck stiff, not backing down an inch before the established superstar, "this team doesn't have to rely on one guy holding the ball and forcing everything. If half those twenty-seven shots today had been shared around..."
"Shared with who?!" Wilkins stepped forward, using his size advantage to loom over the young point guard. "You? So you can charge into a crowd without a plan? Or so you can throw away a lead with two straight turnovers in the final moments, like you did in Indiana last week?!"
"That's still better than one guy taking twenty-seven shots with his head down and not winning!"
"Say that again, motherfucker!"
The two core players stood face-to-face, neither willing to retreat half a step. One was a young point guard riding high after winning a championship with the Rockets just last season. The other was a veteran scoring champion with fourteen years in the league, fresh off an All-Star snub and burning to prove himself.
The young players in the locker room were suddenly at a loss. Sean Elliott tried stepping forward to smooth things over, but quickly discovered that his usual humorous pleasantries offered no way into a confrontation between two such strong-willed core players, both in the heat of anger.
"Enough."
A low, steady voice, without the slightest emotional fluctuation, came from the farthest corner of the locker room.
Everyone turned toward the voice.
Robert Parish sat in front of his locker, unwinding the thick bandages around his knees. From the first day of training camp until now, the veteran who had witnessed Boston's last glorious era had rarely interfered in disputes within the team. He had watched coolly as Cassell and Wilkins fought for authority on the court, and as the young players displayed their impatience and arrogance.
Now Parish's gaze swept across their faces in turn. He delivered a sentence in a tone that brooked no argument.
"Shut up, all of you. How many championships have you won? Is this how you help the team?"
The entire locker room instantly fell deathly silent.
Those words precisely subdued both men's bluster.
Cassell did indeed have a ring. He had just won a championship with the Houston Rockets, and in this room, when it came to "how to win the NBA Finals," only Parish had more right to speak. But in seniority, reputation within the league, and historical standing, he was still a junior before Wilkins. Parish's meaning was clear: since you have won a championship, you should understand that victory requires sound tactics and sacrifice, not arguing with a veteran teammate in the locker room, so you shut up first.
Wilkins, meanwhile, had illustrious credentials. A nine-time All-Star and league scoring champion, he had spent fourteen years in the NBA and amassed countless honors. Yet his trophy room lacked one thing: a championship ring, the greatest regret of his career. Parish's words reminded him as well: the ultimate honor you never touched in fourteen years, this young man won in his first, so do not use your seniority to browbeat a point guard who understands how to win.
Cassell opened his mouth, but no words came out. He silently sat back down.
Wilkins stared at Parish for a long time. On his face, filled with defiance and pride, his clenched jaw gradually loosened. He knew perfectly well that before Parish, a veteran with three championship rings who represented Boston's historical legacy, no individual honors or statistics carried any weight as a rebuttal.
He slowly sat back down in front of his locker and let out a weary, pent-up breath.
A locker room crisis that could have split the team at any moment was quelled by a single remark from Parish.
Late that night, in the narrow visiting-team corridor of the Old Boston Garden, Lin Qi intercepted Parish as he was preparing to leave with his backpack.
"We owe you for tonight, Chief."
Parish carried his backpack without slowing his stride, merely casting Lin Qi an indifferent glance. "I didn't speak up to help you."
He paused, his voice sounding somewhat low in the empty corridor. "There are a few guys in that room who genuinely want to play good basketball. I just don't want to watch them turn a team that had a chance at the playoffs into a cobbled-together mess through infighting."
With that, the veteran pulled down the brim of his cap and walked into Boston's late-night blizzard without looking back.
Lin Qi remained where he was, watching his figure disappear at the end of the corridor, and finally showed a trace of a smile.
The locker room's temper had been suppressed for now. But Lin Qi knew perfectly well that the veteran's prestige and intimidating presence could only maintain a temporary peace. If this young team, seemingly on the right path but actually full of players with their own agendas, wanted to establish a real foothold in the brutally competitive Eastern Conference, relying on one veteran to keep everyone in line was far from enough.
All-Star Weekend was approaching, and there was little time left for this bunch of troublemakers to adjust their mindsets.
Lin Qi tugged at the collar of his suit and turned toward his office. Once All-Star Weekend was over, the regular season would enter its final sprint. Lin Qi tugged at the collar of his suit and walked toward his office. A lot of things had to be settled this week.