Gregg Popovich has seen the Oklahoma City Thunder’s struggles this season. After being one of the top teams in the Western Conference for the past seven years, yeah they’ve been in OKC for a while now, the Thunder are fighting for their playoff lives. It also doesn’t help that they lost last years MVP Kevin Durant for the rest of the season due to injury.
Pop was asked about the Thunder’s struggles this season before the Spurs played OKC on Tuesday, and in a “non-Pop” fashion, gave a “heart warming” answer.
“You gotta feel badly for these guys,” Pop said. “To have top people out that long and miss them for the year and not have them at the end. You can have people out and get them back, but apparently they’re not coming back. So that’s really devastating and really a sad situation, for everybody.”
“There are people who everyone wants to watch play and that’s something no one wants to see. But because of the organization and because of the way they’re built and who they are, they’re not going to stop and keep playing as hard as they can, as you’ve seen. You feel sorry for them, but you’re proud of them at the same time because they play the right way and they do everything they can to win. They don’t cry. They just go play.”
The Spurs beat the Thunder on Tuesday easily, by a score of 113-88 however, after the game Popovich said the win didn’t feel as good because Kevin Durant wasn’t playing.
“I thought we did a pretty good job of trying to keep Russell from getting to the rim as much as he has,” Popovich said. “But no matter how you slice it, it is just not a fair fight. Nobody is going to give back the win. We are going to take the win and I thought we played well, but you just still feel badly when you see Kevin in that chair out there and the other guys are hurt. It is just not a fair fight.”
Like Pop said they will take the win, “but he feels bad.” If the Spurs ended up losing the game though, I’m sure Pop would be the one who “felt bad,” and can’t or don’t want to imagine that.
