Spurs didn't Choke. They just didn't have the firepower to match Durant and Westbrook. They didn't have the athleticism on the inside either to keep up with OKC's very physical frontline. Duncan is a shell of his former self, and Parker is still good but he is a liability on defense. Ginobili looks like an old man out there too. LMA is a bit soft and really his strength is a scoring big man but once OKC adjusted to take him out of his comfort zone, the Spurs were in trouble. Regular season is very different from the playoffs. You don't play a team 7 times in a row in the regular season with everything on the line. You have a lot more time to hone in on a teams patterns and disrupt them, and exploit weaknesses. Credit the Spurs and Pop for winning 67 games the way they did. They used great and beautiful basketball to do it. But this just shows that no matter what your system is, it can't cover up for personnel holes against another very well coached and talented team.
Your post proves my point, people search endlessly for a reason not to criticize the guy. Not getting 40 dropped on you doesn't make you a LeBron stopper. He did not play "Hall of Fame level defense in the vs. Durant/Westbrook this year or vs. the Clippers last year.To blame Popovich ( a Hall of Fame coach) for Kawhi 's failure to assert himself in the 4th quarters of games is an excuse. Superstars don't ask for permission to be great when challenged. Lebron, Durant, and even the guy we have here in town, get killed when their teams don't win, yet Kawhi is teflon. All that's ever said is that he's quiet, he plays hard, and he poops apple pie. Superstars are at the very least held accountable for results and yet folks blame Popovich. We'll probably have to agree to disagree but post a link when anyone ever has a major criticism of the guy. Nice guy, good player, but he's not a superstar until he can take the blame for falling short.
