The Golden State Warriors have surged to 23-0 in large part thanks for their prowess from long range, but San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich continued to voice his displeasure over three-pointers, insisting: “I don’t think it’s basketball.”
Popovich spoke to reporters before the Spurs’ 97-94 defeat by the Toronto Raptors, and said: “I still hate it. I’ll never embrace it. I don’t think it’s basketball. I think it’s kind of like a circus sort of thing. Why don’t we have a five-point shot? A seven-point shot? You know, where does it stop, that sort of thing.
“But that’s just me, that’s just old-school. To a certain degree, you better embrace it or you’re going to lose. And every time we’ve won a championship, the three-point shot was a big part of it. Because it is so powerful and you’ve gotta be able to do it. And nobody does it better than Golden State, and you know where they’re at. So it’s important. You can’t ignore it.”
The Warriors (23-0) have made a league-leading 313 three-pointers this season – 77 more than the Houston Rockets, and almost twice as many as the 23rd-ranked Spurs, who have made 158.
Popovich said: “Nobody is as powerful with that three-point shot as Golden State is. To date, none of us has figured it out. The 24-second shot makes it kind of tough. You say, ‘Well, you have an advantage at the other end, use your big guys.’ If there wasn’t a 24-second clock, that would work a whole lot better.”
In 2014, the Spurs beat the Miami Heat to win the NBA title largely because of their success with three-pointers. They shot more attempts from long range (23.6 per game) than any championship team in league history to that point and beat the two-time champion Heat 4-1.
But even then, Popovich wasn’t happy about it.
“I can’t be stubborn,” the Spurs’ coach said after the 2014 title run, “just because I personally don’t like it and think it mucks up the game. I still hate it.”
The Spurs, who sit second in the Western Conference standings with an 18-5 record, are averaging only 18.8 three-point attempts this season.
