Despite his team being thoroughly outplayed in their first two postseason games, Gregg Popovich has been in relatively good spirits. Before Game 1 he joked about longtime friend Steve Kerr being a “bad person,” while also saying that he’d kicked Kerr’s son Nick, an intern with San Antonio, out of team film sessions before the series.
It almost seems that Popovich has accepted that his team cannot compete in a series against Golden State without Kawhi Leonard, and that realization has softened his traditionally prickly interactions with the media.
The cheekiness continued after Monday’s 116-101 loss to the Warriors at Oracle Arena. Cameras caught a smiling Popovich yelling “Go Warriors,” out the window of an SUV to a group of fans.
The series heads back to San Antonio for two games to be played on Thursday and Sunday. The Warriors have outscored San Antonio by a total of 26 points in the series’ first two games.