The game continued.
For the rest of the second quarter, Popo's substitutions and adjustments were completely at Wang Yi's mercy.
Of course, that wasn't to say Popovich was incompetent. He wanted to make more substitutions and adjustments, but unfortunately, he had no one on the bench to turn to.
Even the cleverest housewife couldn't cook without rice.
The Spurs had a good record this year, but that was mostly thanks to Popovich's coaching.
Of the players under him, only Jon, their Point Guard, could be considered an All-Star. The rest were ordinary players.
With a team like this, making a deep Playoffs run was already difficult.
Yet with just that one All-Star and his own coaching ability, Popovich had managed to drag the team all the way to the Western Conference Finals. That was already quite remarkable.
In these circumstances, expecting him to come up with even more ways to deal with the Kings was asking a bit much of the old man.
At this point, his only hope was that an X-factor would emerge from his roster.
But an X-factor was something you could only hope to stumble upon; you couldn't force one.
By the end of the second quarter, and well into the third, only four minutes remained in the period. The Kings were already leading the Spurs by as many as 15 points.
For Popovich, that margin was acceptable. After all, his team was already at a disadvantage on paper.
And with Tures emerging as an X-factor for the Kings tonight, a 15-point deficit really wasn't all that bad.
At this point, Popovich didn't struggle against the situation too much. When it was time to rest his starters, he let them rest.
He took out every player except his starting center, Little O'Neal.
The Kings, meanwhile, made