Gregg Popovich's reticent and stubborn halftime or postgame responses to questions from members of the media are legendary. Just Thursday night, Popovich clowned another press member during the postgame. To his credit, the press member took it on the chin and kept on asking despite the giggles emerging from the gaggle of reporting peers around him. Not al gol as smoothly though. As ESPN analyst Doris Burke explained on Zach Lowe's podcast Thursday, one particular halftime interview with Pop nearly had the veteran analyst in tears.
“Everybody laughed at that, last year – and I don’t know if you remember the moment – but I had asked him something about the offensive end, and he said ‘turnovers,’ one word,” Burke said, as transcribed by Dan Feldman of Pro Basketball Talk. “Then I asked him about, ‘OK, on the defensive end, you held them to whatever percentage. What did you see that you liked on that end?” And he said ‘turnovers’ again.
“Two words. I was devastated. It was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. I was almost in tears. I go back to where I sit, and I’m trying to compose myself, because I thought I asked two pretty good questions. And those were those were the responses I got.”
Pop can be very smug, but it's best not to take it personally, which is a lesson Burke has probably learned by now.
