Popovich on Game Two Blowout: ‘Lack of Edge’

While Kawhi Leonard ordered dinner from the team hotel, the rest of the San Antonio Spurs choked down a heaping helping of disheartening defeat by way of a 136-100 annihilation at the hands of the Golden State Warriors. The loss dropped the visitors to 0-2 in this Western Conference finals series and led coach Gregg Popovich to question his squad’s fortitude.

“The only way I can process this is it’s not about O’s and X’s, rebounds, turnovers or anything like that,” Popovich said. “Kawhi being gone, I don’t think as I watched … I don’t think they believed. And you have to believe. I don’t think as a group they really did, which means probably a little bit of feeling sorry for themselves psychologically, subconsciously, whatever psycho-babble word you want to use. I don’t think they started the game with a belief, and it showed in the lack of edge, intensity, grunt, all that sort of thing. That was disappointing.”

Source: Michael C. Wright of ESPN