The San Antonio Spurs may have completely turned their playoff series against the Oklahoma City Thunder on its head after franchise legend Gregg Popovich made the move.
Although Popovich stepped down as coach this season due to health reasons, he remained actively involved with the team throughout the year, attending practices, talking with players, and continuing to mentor young players behind the scenes.
But after the Spurs’ Game 3 loss, Popovich finally decided he’d seen enough.
Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox said the Hall of Fame coach burst into the locker room after the loss and delivered a message that immediately changed the energy in the building.
“Popovich has been here all season, but that was the first time he’s been in the locker room,” Fox told NBC’s Showtime staff. “It was like, ‘No, that’s bullshit. That’s not how we play basketball.'” Obviously he had some choice words for us. For the first time all season he walked into the locker room after a game and told us how he felt – and everyone felt that way. Mitch (Johnson, Spurs head coach), B-Wright (Brian Wright, Spurs general manager) were all present, and all the players and even staff were present. That was the first time I saw that. Everybody was there, the coaches, everybody was there. We closed the door so no one knew what was going on inside. We opened that door and saw dad come in and were like, ‘Wow. ‘”
Whatever Popovich says behind closed doors is clearly valid.
The Spurs responded with a completely different intensity in Game 4, with another monster performance from Victor Wembanya and several big defensive adjustments to slow down Oklahoma City’s offense. Suddenly, a series that seemed to be coming to an end is now tied 2-2 back against the Thunder.
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