icewalker was particularly awesome.

I failed yet again. What else is new.

Then Rock hit him, and cut him.

Momentum had started to swing. Drago was not the invincible force anymore. Yeah, he might have killed Apollo Creed (spoiler alert!) and destroyed all opponents leading up to the Rocky fight but Drago was not to be feared after that punch. He was beatable. Even Rocky started seeing only one Ivan again and he got the fire in him to understand that, hey, I can win!

What Popovich is getting at (I think) is if the Spurs had lost before the playoffs started or even in an earlier round then when they got into a tough match-up with Oklahoma City, a loss to the Thunder wouldn’t be as much. When the mighty 20-in-a-row team lost (got cut) it gave confidence to the young Thunder team that, hey, we can win!

OK, that’s fiction. Let’s go real life. Mike Tyson. Buster Douglas beat Iron Mike and Tyson was never ‘feared’ again like before. True, he could hit me with an upper cut and make my neck look (and sound) like a Rock-em Sock-em Robot, but he was never the same after that fight.

Half of winning in sports is 90% mental. Sorry, Yogi.

Top 5 Coach of All-Time IMO.

This year could be different, because of the experience of the younger guys. They’ve all increased their production and minutes so far this season, and all of them have gotten to be the game MVP at various times so far this season.

Really – winning too much “put too much pressure”/”set us up for a letdown?”

And what if instead of sweeping everybody, the Spurs had limped through their playoff series in 7 games each against the Clippers and Utah before losing in 7 games to OKC?

Would Popp have said that the Spurs were too beat up from consecutive full-7 game series each round before, and he wished they had managed to sweep those teams so Duncan and Ginboli would have been better rested against a very talented OKC squad?

See what I mean – whether the Spurs win a lot before losing to OKC (which happened) or lose a lot before losing to OKC (which could have happened), I can make vaguely credible arguments blaming the loss in part on outside factors, when it was really simple.

OKC figured out the Spurs’ offense, and the young Thunder made a couple of key plays when they needed to near the end of games. That’s all it takes for one very talented team to beat another very talented team – just a couple of plays here and there.

….So winning a lot of games makes it likely you can lose 3+ in a row?

I hugely respect Pop, but that honestly makes no sense.
He’s basically arguing tat it was a disadvantage for the 2011-2012 Spurs team that had older veterans like Duncan and Ginobli to *sweep* their competition in the playoffs since that made it harder to win in the Western Conference Finals?

I don’t buy it at all.

You want your team to win games, ESPECIALLY in the playoffs, since your reward is additional days of rest as well as fewer chances of injury. Every time they swept an opponent, they gave Duncan a breather and decreased the odds of sustaining an injury. Their loss to OKC had nothing to do with their win streak and everything to do with OKC moving the ball better and getting key contributions from Ibaka and yes, even Perkins, on offense.