Funny thing, a basketball fan’s psyche. Had the Spurs gotten blown out by 30 instead of having a championship snatched out from under Ray Allen’s feet in the final five seconds of Game 6, it’s safe to say San Antonio would be a far more cheerful pace in the hours leading up to the final tip in an NBA Finals that’s destined to go the distance.
But here we are, still dazed from either one of the most egregious closeout-game chokes in NBA history, or simply one of its best games, period. Gregg Popovich made it clear in the post-game press room that he stood in the latter camp, enthusiastically extolling the virtues of an ultra-dramatic tug-of-war between the league’s best teams. He did this despite uncharacteristic murmurs that his fourth-quarter substitution idiosyncrasies may have cost him his fifth title as San Antonio’s head coach.
But here’s the thing about Pop: He doesn’t hear the murmurs. Or if he does, they go in one ear and out the other. This is what makes him a great coach, and this is why his Spurs are better equipped than any team in the league to bounce back after such a soul-crushing defeat.
But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to offer him some advice on what to do in Game 7:
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2013.
Yeah, this didn’t work out so well for the Spurs