The Spurs players all followed Old Master Bo's instructions, showering the Kings with praise in every interview.
"The Kings are a disciplined team. Every one of them plays with heart."
"Their head coach is a clever strategist. The fact that he once led the Kings to three championships is enough to show how good De'Anthony is."
"The Kings' leader, Wang Yi, is one of the strongest leaders I've ever seen. Not only is he a player of historic caliber, but his leadership is also second to none. You can see that from the four consecutive championships he led the Kings to."
"In the four years the Kings won those four consecutive championships, you could say they had four different groups of players. He led every single group to a championship. In other words, you could drop him onto any team and he'd win a championship. That's Wang Yi."
In short, from the owner down to the cleaners on the court, the Spurs players praised the Kings over and over.
Of course, the Kings were always friendlier to teams that treated them well, so they had plenty of praise for the Spurs, too.
They even praised Old Master Bo to the heavens.
Both sides knew this was nothing more than mutual back-scratching, but they also knew that this kind of exchange was necessary when facing an opponent.
If you didn't praise them and instead tried to provoke them, you'd fire up their competitive spirit and make them work a hundred times harder.
On the other hand, if you praised your opponents, they certainly wouldn't take your words at face value, but they'd play a little more calmly.
That was the point of this seemingly useless mutual praise.
At five in the afternoon, the game officially got underway at the Spurs' arena.