Written by Brian Windhorst at ESPN.com
In the wake of Kawhi Leonard’s unfortunate injury in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals, old friends Gregg Popovich and Mike Brown came to defend their sides with different game plans.
No, Zaza Pachulia did not purposely move his leg in under Leonard, Brown said calmly. Then he pointed out several moments from Game 1 when San Antonio Spurs players had moved under Golden State Warriors defenders that did not result in injury — but could have. Brown’s case had time stamps for good measure. It was neither inflammatory nor aggressive, as is his nature.
Popovich, on the other hand, came with heat, accusing Pachulia of an “unnatural” closeout, branding him a dirty player because of a history of elbow throwing, and then compared the results of his reckless abandon to manslaughter. He did so with what appeared to be a boiling rage.
Then Popovich cracked a joke, defusing the mood and making everyone wonder whether he was angry enough to declare war over this act or if he was merely executing some sort of radical commentary about hot-take artists. It was probably the former, but he likes to keep people off balance.
In that moment, you had the yin and yang between Brown and Popovich — close friends, mentor and pupil, and combatants once again in what could end up being a lopsided playoff series.
“Pop and Mike are very different guys,” said Hank Egan, the sage old coach who happens to be the mentor of each man. Egan was Popovich’s coach at the Air Force Academy and later gave him his first coaching job in the 1970s. In the 1990s, Egan was Brown’s coach at the University of San Diego.
“If they were painters,” Egan said, “Pop would be sort of like Jackson Pollock and Mike would be like Norman Rockwell. One guy likes to stay within the lines, and the other guy, well, let’s say he can be a little more spontaneous.”
Their arguments in the wake of the Game 1 event backed that up. Popovich was aggressive and sublime in the same moment, Brown going for analytical and arguing it was just a bad break in the beautiful game.
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