San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is wasting no time when it comes to making lineup adjustments, pulling out forward David Lee and inserting veteran center Pau Gasol into the lineup after suffering an embarrassing 126-99 Game 1 loss to the Houston Rockets at the AT&T Center, according to Mark Berman of Fox26.
When questions were raised about the sudden change in the lineup, the longest-tenured coach explained his reasoning with his usual sarcasm, saying it was because his team lost by “47 or 53 or whatever.”
Gregg Popovich hilarious while going into the deep thinking that went into the decision to start Pau Gasol in place of David Lee: pic.twitter.com/nFp0O1xsAB
— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) May 3, 2017
This decision could prove costly for the Spurs — while it does bring a sense of familiarity, Gasol's insertion brings yet another big man unable to run the floor from end-to-end efficiently, rendering them vulnerable to the Rockets' meal ticket.
The move by Coach Pop comes after the Rockets ran all over the Spurs en route to a 126-99 road victory in Game 1 on Monday night.
While San Antonio could potentially stifle the Rockets on the low-post, they also risk getting run out of the gym if Houston can keep up a breakneck pace and drain threes off of player movement like they did on Game 1.
After Monday's poor display of fundamental basketball, as Pop mentioned during his post-game press conference, the Spurs badly need a win at home and are sure to pull out all the stops in order to ensure they don't fly to Houston down 0-2 in the series.
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