Finding consolation
As losses mount, Pop keeping young team focused on development
Gregg Popovich does not recall the precise game or the precise details. He just remembers that Brett Brown had an idea.
This is nothing new. Popovich has dubbed his top assistant “the bubble machine” in homage to his effervescent supply of new thoughts.
But on this particular occasion, Popovich was in no mood to hear one of them.
“He’s saying, ‘Pop, remember when we did such-and-such?’ ” Popovich said. “(I said), ‘Brett, we’re down by 27. Can we talk about this later?’ ”
Had Brown waited for a time on the Spurs’ recently completed road swing in which they were not getting clobbered to unleash a new thought bubble, he might still be waiting.
The Spurs went 0-5 on the trip, with four of those defeats coming by double figures.
They concluded it with backto-back losses in Los Angeles to the Clippers and Lakers by a combined 53 points.
Heading into Wednesday’s
return game against New Orleans at the AT&T Center, the Spurs have dropped 10 of their past 11, turning the glow of a 5-2 start to the season into a mirage.
One might think such a rash of losing could make it difficult for Spurs players to continue to accentuate the positive in the throes of a rebuilding season.
One might be correct, but only partly.
“At times it could, but we understand the position we’re in,” point guard Tre Jones said. “We understand with our youth and inexperience, we’ve got to continue to look at the positives throughout the stretch we’re in right now. We’ve got to continue to chip away, and know we will be able to turn the page.”
For the past few weeks, at least in terms of wins and losses, the Spurs have been stuck in the same place in the book.
Such a rough patch was much more expected coming into the season than the Spurs’ hot start in October.
The trick for the Spurs now is to keep morale up, even amid a barrage of losses.
“Obviously losing sucks, but I think we have good leadership in our locker room, good energy, a really good coaching staff,” veteran forward Doug Mcdermott said. “We understand the wins might not come all the time, but there’s a chance to get better every day.”
The Spurs have been competitive when they have played their preferred starting lineup. Tellingly, that happened only once on the most recent road trip.
That came in a 117-110 loss at Portland the Spurs seemed on track to win until a late meltdown.
In a season of lessons to be learned for the callow Spurs, players are picking up a tough one the hard way.
“Winning is hard in the NBA,” said center Gorgui Dieng, the Spurs’ eldest statesman at age 32. “They’re learning that. But whether you win or lose, make sure you have the right habits.”
That was the point of a two-hour practice session Tuesday, which Popovich scheduled less than 24 hours after the team returned from a nine-day West Coast trip.
The Spurs have won once since the calendar flipped to November, a 111-93 win over a shorthanded Milwaukee squad Nov. 11.
Sandwiched around that solitary triumph are 10 defeats.
If one might think the winningest coach in NBA history would struggle to accept a season in which his team figures to lose many more games than it wins, one would be mistaken.
“It depends on your value system, and what your goals are,” said Popovich, who returned to practice Tuesday after missing Sunday’s loss to the Lakers with an undisclosed illness.
Those goals, Popovich said, have little to do with winning and losing.
“These guys aren’t ignorant,” Popovich said. “You have to be straightforward and honest about what the goals are — that’s individually for development and understanding team-wise how we have to play.
“It’s about values and goals. That’s how you get through it.”
If there is anyone in the Spurs’ locker room who knows how to navigate a doomed ship, it is Brown.
He was the coach of the Process-era Philadelphia 76ers, a team purposely built to lose in order to amass as many high draft picks as possible.
Brown’s Sixers totaled 47 wins in his first three seasons, from 2013 to 2016. For decades, that would have been a low total for one season in San Antonio.
These Spurs aren’t those 76ers, exactly, but they are a team in which stacking up wins is not the organization’s top priority.
“I had some teams I really loved coaching when I was in Philadelphia and we were going through the rebuild phase,” Brown said. “This group is every bit that enjoyable, in terms of being high-character, coming to the gym every day.”
When Popovich fell ill in L.A. over the weekend, it was Brown who guided the Spurs in a 123-92 loss to the Lebron James-less Lakers.
Brown might be forgiven for flashing back to the nightly whippings he used to take in his early days in Philly.
Brown’s message — to his Sixers then and the Spurs now — was simple.
Even if winning is beyond a team’s control, playing the right way is not.
“We’re better than we played tonight,” Brown said after the Lakers game. “We’ve competed at a far greater level than we did tonight.
“We will respond. We’re a prideful group.”
The Spurs get a chance to do that Wednesday against a power-packed New Orleans squad.
It would be an upset if the Spurs beat the starladen Pelicans.
It would be surprising, however, if they did not at least compete.
“We’ve got a lot of good guys in that locker room,” Mcdermott said. “We’re just trying to develop some good habits. We’re going to continue to try to get better every day.”