The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!

He and Iguodala were truly cut from the same cloth.

Later, when Iguodala was with the Gold Digging Team, he made a similar move:

George Karl asked him to undercut Curry, and he chose to act like Battier.

Afterwards, Iguodala joined the Warriors and formed the "Death Five Small"...

It was hard to say that the Warriors acquired him without Curry's behind-the-scenes work.

At this point, Su Wan suddenly thought, isn't this Battier's contract year as well?

Good, very good...

He could already see Battier in the "Apple Red" team jersey.

Battier's "betrayal" was something Popovich hadn't anticipated.

As he waited, Su Wan went all out and scored 23 points in a single quarter.

By the half, the New York Knicks were leading by 14 points.

Returning to the locker room, Popovich was furious. He turned to Battier, "Guy, what are you doing? Why aren't you doing what I told you?"

The other Spurs rookies thought Popovich was angry because Battier hadn't managed to guard Su Wan.

Only the "Three Horses" exchanged glances, knowing Popovich's anger must be for another reason.

After all, it wasn't just this game where Battier couldn't guard Su Wan.

It seemed he was supposed to play dirty, but he hadn't...

As people who had worked with Popovich for many years, they knew too well that what infuriated Popovich most was when players didn't follow his orders.

But this was really putting Battier in a tough spot.

With his personality, how could he possibly do such things?

Tim Duncan, just before taking the court, patted Battier on the shoulder.

Battier looked at him unexpectedly, and they understood each other without words.

This made Battier a bit perplexed about Tim Duncan.

As the team leader, are you just going to watch Popovich do this, and stay silent all these years?

In his heart, Tim Duncan was a good person, without any airs of a superstar. But he hadn't expected that in this matter, Duncan had conceded to Popovich and even saw it as normal.

It makes sense...

If the opposing core player gets injured and the team wins the championship, he would indeed be the biggest beneficiary.

Thinking back, Tim Duncan had always praised Bruce Bowen as a good person.

Combining that with his current actions,

Battier only muttered in his heart:

"These people getting beaten up at Conseco Arena, none of them are innocent."

He used to really think, from Tim Duncan's perspective, that Bruce Bowen was a good person behind closed doors!

He was too naive!

Now, he was eager to leave this city.

This wasn't the team style he liked.

The second half came quickly, Su Wan noticed Battier was benched, and the commentators thought as usual that it was Greg putting pressure on Shawn to sit a bit longer on the bench so that when Shawn Battier came back on, he would show more zeal.

This tactic was a common method for Popovich to tame players.

And 80% of the time, it worked.

But what surprised the commentators was that throughout the second half, the Spurs never brought Battier back on.

Jefferson was the main one guarding Su Wan.

They hadn't noticed that...

Su Wan had changed his style of play, no longer shooting directly against Jefferson, but instead, creating enough space by resisting Jefferson before making his shots.

As the confrontation escalated, he began frequently calling for pick-and-rolls.

All these changes aimed to prevent Jefferson from having a chance to undercut him.

Su Wan didn't know whether Jefferson was the next player Popovich had planned to execute the "Black Hand" strategy, but all his precautions were preventative. From his observations, Jefferson hadn't shown obvious moves, but "better safe than sorry."

Jefferson, exhausted during the confrontation, began to lose stamina in the fourth quarter, and his defensive quality also declined.

Not only him, the entire Spurs team, just like in the previous game, started showing stamina issues as they entered the fourth quarter.

The aftermath of the "Game 7 Battle," with the arrival of the second game of the finals, became more pronounced.

And this stamina crisis, as the series continued, would appear sooner and sooner.

Actually, the original Spurs team had suffered from this symptom.

But that was next season.

Originally, they experienced the "back-to-back-to-back" absurd schedule in the next "Shortened Season," still making it to the Western finals and leading 3-1, then during the subsequent games, the younger and more physically fit Thunder Team showcased their stamina advantage. Every time it went into the fourth quarter, the Spurs would collapse due to stamina issues, getting overtaken by a large margin by the Thunder Team, and falling on the Western finals stage.

While the original Spurs team faced the "Black Eight" that season, thus this problem didn't surface.

But now it seemed that this chronic issue was already quite apparent in this season.

However, for Popovich, this game's loss was insignificant; not succeeding in sidelining Su Wan for the season, even if they had won, wouldn't have pleased him.

Damn Shawn Battier!

After so many years with the Spurs under contract, now you won't even do this little thing; the Spurs really wasted their resources on you!

Forget it, do you think you're the only one on the Spurs team?

Cut it out...

There are so many people on the bench, there's always someone wanting to make a name for themselves and take a shot.