Popovich: 3-pointer 'isn't basketball; like a circus'
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich fired another shot from long range Wednesday night as he continued to voice his displeasure over 3-point shots.
“I still hate it,” Popovich told reporters after the Spurs’ 97-94 loss to the Toronto Raptors. “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 5-point shot? A 7-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 3-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 Warriors, and you know where they’re at. So it’s important. You can’t ignore it.”
In 2014, the Spurs dismantled the two-time defending champion Miami Heat in the NBA Finals largely because of the 3-point shot as they fired up more attempts from long range (23.6 per game) than any championship team in league history to that point.
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 Warriors (23-0) have made a league-leading 313 3-pointers this season — 77 more than the Houston Rockets, who rank second in the league, and almost twice as many as the 23rd-ranked Spurs (158).
“Nobody is as powerful with that 3-point shot as Golden State is. To date, none of us has figured it out,” Popovich told reporters. “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.”
The Spurs, who are second in the Western Conference standings with an 18-5 mark, are averaging only 18.8 3-point attempts this season.
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