The San Antonio Spurs may be considered one of the best teams, not only in the Western Conference, but in the NBA this season, but hearing head coach Gregg Popovich, you may think that this team is going through an agonizing season.
After San Antonio dropped last night’s game to the Chicago Bulls 95-91, the legendary Spurs coach ripped his team and their performance.
“guys get a lot of money to be ready to play” Popovich said.
“I don’t remember playing tonight. No Knute Rockne speeches. It’s your job. If you’re a plumber and you don’t do your job, you don’t get any work. I don’t think a plumber needs a pep talk. A doctor botches operations, and he’s not a doctor anymore. If you’re a basketball player, you come ready. It’s called maturity. It’s your job.”
The Spurs had a 13-0 road record entering into their game with the Bulls and had an opportunity, if they had won, to become the only NBA franchise with a .500 road record all time, according to Elias Sports Bureau research.
If the Spurs pulled out the win they would have tied Golden State’s record last season for consecutive road wins (14) to start an NBA regular season.
Chicago led by as many as 18 points in the game and San Antonio.
“We played 24 minutes again, as we have for about the last 10 games,” Popovich said. “We go through the motions in the first half. I think we shot one free throw in the first half. We shot four or so the second half. But we played harder in the second half. I don’t know if we played much smarter. Our opponents have outplayed us physically and execution-wise in most first halves for most of the season. So now we pull it together in the second half, and played harder and smarter and got it to [a] four [-point deficit]. That’s the disappointing part: We’re not a very consistent team, and we haven’t learned as a group that the game is 48 minutes. We also have some people playing very poorly. You have to participate in your own recovery. Some players have to play better.”
