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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WARRIORS VS SPURS

May 15, 2017

Gregg Popovich

Oakland, California - Practice Day

Q. Coach, you know the status of Kawhi?
COACH POPOVICH: He's getting an MRI right now, but I would guess he'll be out.

Q. How much more difficult is it without him, obviously, against a team?
COACH POPOVICH: Come on, man? How much more difficult is it? How would it be if curry didn't play? How much more difficult would that be? I'm not a happy camper, but that's a silly question. A two-step, lead with your foot closeout is not appropriate. It's dangerous, it's unsportsmanlike, it's just not what anybody does to anybody else. And this particular individual has a history with that kind of action.

You can go back and look at Dallas games where he got a flagrant 2 for elbowing Patty Mills. The play where he took Kawhi down and locked his arm in Dallas and could have broken his arm. Ask David West, his current teammate how things went when Zaza was playing for Dallas and he and David got into it.

Then think about the history he's had and what that means to a team, what happened last night. A totally, unnatural closeout that the league has outlawed years ago and pays great attention to it, and Kawhi's not there. And you want to know how we feel about it. You want to know if that lessens our chances or not.

We're playing very possibly the best team in the league. You know, we don't know what's going to happen the East. 9.75 people out of 10 would figure the Warriors will beat the Spurs. Well, we've had a pretty damn good season. We've played fairly well in the playoffs. I think we're getting better, and we're up 23 points in the third quarter against Golden State and Kawhi goes down, like that, and you want to know if our chances are less, and you want to know how we feel. That's how we feel. Follow-ups? Does that pretty much cover it?

Q. Do you expect the league to do anything?
COACH POPOVICH: I don't care what the league does. I'm just telling you how I feel. The league is the league. They do what they do. I could care a less.

Q. Did you express the same tone with [Executive VP, Basketball Operations] Kiki [VanDeWeghe]?
COACH POPOVICH: No, I didn't call the league. Why would I do that? They looked at the play. If they do something, they do something. If they don't, they don't. All I care about is Kawhi's not there. You know, having your horses is important at this point in the deal. When you're playing Golden State in their place and you're playing like that, it's pretty cool. And if he would have played and they had ended up winning, I'd go get dinner, have a glass of wine, wake up the next day, go to practice and move on.

But this is crap. And because he's got this history, it can't just be, oh, it was inadvertent. He didn't have intent. Who gives a damn about what his intent was? You ever hear of manslaughter? You still go to jail, I think, when you're texting and you end up killing somebody, but you might not have intended to do that, all I care about is what I saw. All I care about is what happened and the history there exacerbates the whole situation and makes me very, very angry. But I'm still open to follow-ups.

Q. A basketball player should have a responsibility for the safety of the other nine individuals on the floor?
COACH POPOVICH: Nobody wants to do anything that would put anybody else in danger for a game or a career. This guy's history is different.

Q. Is this a situation where you're also considering Kawhi's long-term future when you decide whether he plays or not?
COACH POPOVICH: That's why we sat him in the Houston series, because we weren't sure. We weren't sure what this injury was. We did the same thing with Tim Duncan early in his career in the Phoenix series. He could have played in that playoff, and I sat him because he had a great future ahead of him. We'll see. We'll see what the MRI says, but obviously he won't play tomorrow.

Q. I'm figuring today's not a good day to ask a question about Donald Trump?
COACH POPOVICH: No, not a good day. That's a very complicated situation. So much to grab for and I don't know where to start. I'll let that go for today.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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