Im not saying Popovitch isn't a good coach but that doesn't mean the Heat aren't a completely different team when it matters which is in the playoffs. There is a reason they haven't been the top seed in the conference the past two seasons but made it to the Finals both years, winning one. Also, the Heat have Lebron James and the Spurs do not. I am not saying the there is no way the Spurs could have beat the Heat, but considering they didn't even make it there tends to make me think they wouldn't have. Tonight's game meant absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter who played tonight, it was just another regular season game that they were required to play before the playoffs for the Miami Heat.
As much as im against this its a business and i understand where Sterns coming from. Its just like how Dana White gets outraged when Silva dances around when people paid 50$ to see a good fight.
Funny that "bee beard" telling people to go to laker ground when he obviously just a Kobe sack rider/laker troll. "Beebeard" lol
Kenny Smith just made a great point. This is no different than guys resting players at the end of the season when they have playoff spots wrapped up. Folks have tickets to those games too. IIRC, didn't the Mavs do this and allow the Warriors in the playoffs (they would have missed it if they beat them), and then wound up losing to GS?
True but expect those end of season games to be like that, it's a given. This was a last second thing at the beginning of the season.
Everybody got what they wanted, they got a close entertaining game.. I think its silly they're going to fine SAS for resting their players. Its a rigorous 82 game season and I think coaches (especially Pop) have the right to rest whoever the hell they wants. I cant wait til they do this again ( if it happends again) and Pop is forced to play his starters and one of them gets hurt and it backfires on Stern. He really should do us a favor and retire early.
BeeBeard - The only knock you have on LeBron is that he's not as good as Michael Jordan? Fair enough. And the LeBron hate ended last year by the way in case you didn't get the memo. The King shut all you haters up.
If you really care about seeing the spurs starters play, then you my freinds are in the wrong forum. Maybe go cry in the S.A chat rooms. It's a road game, more than likely the fans payed to watch the home team? Hell they show crappier games on espn and TNT all the time. 3-4 starters are dinasours anyway.
Doctor Cox(Popps) and Doctor Kelso(Stern) are gonna go at it. But that was a great game nonetheless. Thought there were some whistles that were blown on both sides that shouldn't have been called. It's rare to see 2 basketball teams just play out the clock and not shoot any free throws lately.
Brilliant move by Pop. Heat had 4 days to prepare for the Spurs, and one move rendered their entire scouting report useless.
I'm on the fence about this. If Pop wanted to rest his starters, could've done it against the Magic. He waited until the Heat game, which happened to be on national tv...I don't think it was a coincidence. And I'm not sure how Stern can hand down "sanctions" to a guy making a coaching decision. I think both of them lose in this situation, which is a win for me. To heck with both of em
It's been done before. The past precedence is the team (aka the owner) gets fined a piddly, symbolic amount of money -- roughly equivalent to Lebron getting a $5k fine for a flop. Yes, the league has fined teams (not coaches) for doing this in the past. We might be making too big of a deal about an owner getting fined, thinking this is about a coach getting fined. Withhold judgement until if and when Stern actually fines a coach for not playing his starters.
A win against the Magic is worth the same as a win against the Heat, but one of the wins is significantly easier. National TV or not, Popovich put his team in the best position to win, which is what a coach is supposed to do.
That's weird strategy. By your logic, he put his team in the best position to win one out of two games. If he wants to win BOTH games, wouldn't he rest the starters against the Magic and play everyone against the Heat. Your explanation is no better than the explanation that he should go for both wins and still get rest. There is no way around it. Popovich knew his schedule and he chose not to rest up for the Heat game. His plan was to bail on that game like a p***y.
