The Spurs players got steamrolled by the Heat in the second half in Miami Tuesday, shooting just 34 percent, putting up 35 points and being outscored by 36 points.
The thumping didn’t stop once they went to the locker room. Here is what coach Gregg Popovich said of his team, via the Express-News Spurs Blog.
“I thought in the second half they got real physical, and I thought we folded,” Popovich said. “The physicality killed us. We had nobody that stepped up. We let the physicality beat us in a lot of different ways — whether it was cuts, or passing or boards. It didn’t matter what it was. Their physicality put us in a ditch.
“They beat our ass in the second half. We should be embarrassed by that, playing that soft.”
This is Popovich, so the point of that rant is motivation going forward. This is a team that needs to do everything right while Manu Ginobili sits to have a chance.
And even then, as last year’s playoffs showed, you can push the Spurs around. He wants his guys to push back, but he may not have the roster that can do it any more.