It was a frustrating night for Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs. The team led by as many as 19 points in the first half on the Golden State Warriors, but as the defending champions are wont to do, they stormed back and walked out of the building with a win.
When things like this happen, it’s an understatement to say that the opposing team gets demoralized. The Warriors have proved time and time again that no lead is safe when they get locked in, and if they can figure out whatever issues contribute to slow stretches in games, they can take over. Unfortunately for the Spurs, that happened on Thursday.
This led to Popovich’s anger boiling over at the end of the game. With just under five minutes remaining, Warriors rookie Jordan Bell appeared to have traveled, but it went uncalled by the officials and Patrick McCaw ended up hitting a two. From there, Pop lost it and got T’d up twice, partly because he screamed “terrible f*cking referee” at an official. (A fairly obvious warning: The video of the incident features some NSFW language.)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x67fbnp
Popovich isn’t the kind of guy to completely lose his cool like this, especially to the point where he so blatantly curses out an official and has to be physically restrained by his assistants. I suppose this is the kind of thing that happens when you play the Warriors.
