...By the fourth year of the
Duncan/Popovich era,
Spurs fans felt the same way about their team in close games. We were money. We owned crunch time. We didn't shoot ourselves in the foot. We didn't take unnecessary risks. We thrived on making other teams beat themselves. We were reasonably aggressive but never dangerously so. We always had a plan. Our players were prepared for any conceivable situation. In a close game, Pop, Duncan and our defense would take us home. Every time.
Not Sunday night. The
Spurs looked rattled and unprepared. The Colts did not. They do not keep statistics for this.
Did it feel like the end of an era? Yeah, a little. The truth is,
Popovich is
60 years old. I doubt he's banking those famous 19-hour work days anymore. I doubt he possesses the same hunger that fueled him when he was trying to escape Bill Parcells' shadow and make a name for himself. Everything is gravy for him at this point. His place in history is secure.
Career security can be damaging in one of two ways: either you stop taking chances, or you feel emboldened and start taking too many of them.
Popovich's recent history shows that he would rather roll the dice than do something conventionally. He made so many trades in the draft this past April that I can't even remember where we ended up picking. Right before the season, with the Patriots picked by many as the clear Super Bowl favorite, he dealt one of his defensive pillars (Richard Seymour) to Oakland for a future first-round pick. On Sunday night, he went for the jugular in Indianapolis when the situation demanded prudence.
Were these events connected? I can't tell. Statistics can't help us here.
Pop might just be a coach who climbed the mountain a few times, then decided he needed to cement his legacy by being the ballsiest football coach any of us have ever seen. If that's true, he failed Sunday night. This Sunday, he might succeed. He keeps plowing ahead. Either way, he remains the most fascinating coach in professional football -- something that hasn't changed since 2001, by the way -- and I remain thankful that he runs my favorite team. Give me
Popovich with a few miles off his fastball over just about anyone else.
Just don't tell me this Sunday night didn't mean … something. In the aforementioned Game 6, I remember watching those Yankees fans celebrating after the seventh and thinking, "There is absolutely nobody in my sports fan life now that makes me feel as secure as those Yankee fans feel with Rivera right now."
I used to feel that way about the
Spurs. I did. And now we're here.
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