"Greg, did you go back so early today?"

In the San Antonio Spurs' head coach's office, Buford, the team's general manager, just pushed the door in and saw Popovich getting up and leaving, which also stunned the Spurs general manager.

The Spurs did not have a game today. In his impression, no matter whether the Spurs will have a game or not, the team's head coach would not leave so early. You must know that it is not an easy thing to let such a stubborn guy change his rules.

"Oh, yes, I need to go back now." Seeing the general manager of his team coming in, the Spurs head coach also said with a faint smile. The Spurs head coach has always had a bad face in front of the media. In fact, he is not much worse even in private. He always looks like he is not close to someone else. In the end, even his wife always accuses him of this matter.

In the end, he even threatened that if he still had this bad face when he entered the house, he would get out. Although this did not make Popovich much better, at least he was not that stranger. Moreover, in the media recently, the head coach of the Spurs could even tell jokes, although the joke seemed to be cold and humorous no matter how you heard it.

"That's it, then I'll come to you tomorrow morning." Finally, I looked at Popovich, and Buford said with a smile. He had nothing special about him, just about the renewal of the team's young player Tony Parker. The Spurs intend to keep him, and he also hopes to stay with the Spurs. Now the young player's value is not expensive, so it's not very difficult to renew the contract. It's just that Popovich needs to give a rough reference contract. I'm not in a hurry now.

"Yeah" After Buford left with a smile, Popovich also looked at the back of his team's general manager and quickly left his office.

The Spurs did not have a game today, but today there is currently a game between the Lakers, the number one in the West and the third in the West. As the head coach of the second team in the West, he is naturally very concerned about this game. It can be said that this year, Popovich has always believed that the Spurs' main opponents. In particular, there are only two opponents in the West. The Timberwolves who eliminated them last season and the Lakers who defeated them twice in a row this season.

Of course, in addition to these two teams being his main opponents, what is more important is that he wants to see if the Lakers will lose in this game, because in his estimate, facing a double tower team like Garnett and Wang Zhizhi, the Lakers have no way to resist. Now the Timberwolves' head coach is not the little Van Gundy who can't attack at all.

Now if the Lakers' offense is the league's first, then the Timberwolves' offense can rank among the top three in the league, and more importantly, the Lakers' offense cannot be defended, but the Lakers' offense may not be able to penetrate the Timberwolves. In particular, this team has an inside line with a stronger ability to assist Duncan, in this case, it is unknown how many achievements the Lakers' offense can perform.

This is Popovich's analysis of this game. Under his analysis, the winning rate of the Lakers and the Timberwolves will be 55% in this game, and the important reason why the Lakers can occupy 50% of the winning rate is because of the Lakers' Terminator tactics that have been hiding. If there is no Terminator tactics, the Lakers' winning rate will be lower.

"Have the game started?"

When Popovich returned home, he ignored his wife and went straight to his study. At this time, his wife glared at the Spurs head coach fiercely from behind, probably thinking about whether he would let him kneel on the washboard. However, at this time, the extremely anxious Spurs head coach did not feel the "dangerous" atmosphere.

When Popovich hurriedly turned on his study TV, it was a little late in the end, and the game did start. Popovich also subconsciously looked at the score, and then a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth involuntarily. Less than half of the first quarter, the Lakers only scored 12 points, while the Timberwolves on the other side had already scored 18 points. The Lakers were so passive at the beginning of the game, which surprised Popovich a little. Although he was optimistic about the Timberwolves in this game, he never thought that the Timberwolves could be so strong at the beginning.

"The Timberwolves' game is really strong." After sitting down and watching for a while, the Spurs head coach was also shocked. At the beginning of this game, the Timberwolves' game's intensity surprised him. At least, the Timberwolves' game in the regular season game is no worse than last year's semi-finals of the Western Conference. They are definitely in full force.

"Haha, it seems that the Minnesota media has had a lot of influence on this team in recent times." When the Spurs head coach thought of this, he smiled happily. At this time, when he saw the TV camera coming around to cheer for Zhuang Fei, the smile on the Spurs head coach's face was a little awkward. Although the smile on his face also disappeared, he snorted coldly in the end.

For Popovich and the Spurs, they can get more benefits when the Lakers win this game. After all, they are still competing with the Timberwolves for the second place in the Western Conference regular season. If the Lakers can defeat the Timberwolves, the gap between them and the Timberwolves will widen. In comparison, even if the Lakers lose, they will not be able to catch up with the Lakers, and instead will make the Timberwolves catch up in the end.

But compared to rational hope that the Lakers can win, he hopes that the Timberwolves can win more. You know, he has been waiting for this game for half a month, and he doesn't want the Lakers and Zhuang Fei to win like this.

At the beginning of the season, at the draft, he felt that Zhuang Fei was not allowed to play a center. However, the whole world thought that this team would not do anything. Now, this really proves his original guess. Even though he guessed that the Lakers might perform amazingly this season, he never thought that the Lakers would play so amazingly. This is no longer amazing but horrifying.

But for Popovich, he certainly knew where the fatal flaws of a team like the Lakers. Although the league's inside line is in decline, especially the center is in decline, this does not mean that the NBA has no traditional inside teams, and the Timberwolves is one of them. When the Lakers played with the Bulls and the Bucks, the team's performance was very thrilling. At that time, Popovich was already looking forward to what would happen if the Lakers met the Timberwolves or the Celtics.

"It's a pity that David has retired. If the Spurs were in 1999, we could defeat this Lakers." Finally, watching the Timberwolves, who are getting bigger and more fierce on TV, the Spurs coach also sighed. If his team had an admiral in 1999, there was no problem with the Spurs defeating the Lakers. So every time the media boasted that the Lakers were the best team in history, he would sneer. In his opinion, this Lakers just appeared in a special era. If we really want to say which team is stronger in the best decade, besides the Bulls in 1996, it would be the Timberwolves in 2001. This Lakers are still far from these two teams.

Of course, although Popovich has always been disdainful of this Lakers, in fact, in the current league, few teams can defeat this Lakers. Even his own Spurs will find it difficult to defeat the current Lakers after abandoning the double towers and starting a small ball offense. Although this Lakers cannot be said to be the strongest team in history, it is still possible to say that the strongest small ball tactics team in history. In Popovich's opinion, this Lakers are the nemesis of the small ball tactics.

"You are our nemesis, so the Timberwolves are your nemesis." When I thought of this, the Spurs head coach smiled again. In the current NBA, the league is full of all kinds of nemesis. Even the strongest team has nemesis. This may be a good or a bad thing for the NBA. After all, the strongest team cannot truly dominate the entire league because of the existence of the nemesis, which is the so-called lack of dominance.

Of course, although the Timberwolves are the nemesis of the Lakers, it is impossible to defeat this Lakers easily. So in the first quarter, the crazy Timberwolves caught the Lakers off guard. After the Lakers fell behind ten in a single quarter, in the second quarter, the Lakers' second team began to really play hard to match with the Timberwolves' second team, and the Lakers also got some respite.

"If he can be with the Spurs, then our team will be perfect, and we may not be able to defeat the Lakers." Looking at the Argentine who was almost fighting against the Lakers' second team on TV with his own strength, Popovich was also a little heartbroken. You know, Ginobili was the first to be fond of, but in the end he was robbed by Zhuang Fei. Now, this Argentine actually brought three Chinese people to the Lakers' substitute lineup, which is known as the strongest second team in the league, and this can be seen that the defender's current strength is now. Now he has reached the peak of his own strength.

Of course, no matter how painful Popovich is, he is jealous. Ginobili is now a Timberwolves player. He and Pierce, with Xue Yuyang, Moko and Bartel, the three Chinese, actually completely suppressed the Lakers' counterattack momentum in the second quarter. When the half-time game ended, the fact that the Lakers were 11 points behind also made Popovich very happy.

He even saw that the Timberwolves' door to defeat the Lakers had appeared, but the door opened larger than he thought, which made him feel a little uneasy.
Chapter completed!