Well, that's not how we wanted 2014 to start for the Spurs. I don't think many of us had the Good Guys losing tonight, and I was expecting a blowout.
The Spurs were very sloppy in the first half, turning the ball over 10 times, and didn't look like they were really in the game. In the first half San Antonio took a nine-point lead, but took their foot off of the gas and started making dumb mistakes. By halftime the Knicks had a five-point lead.
The Spurs couldn't capitalize on a career-night for Marco Belinelli, where he scored 32 points on 75% shooting. San Antonio found themselves down by 11 in the second half, climbed all the way back and took a two-point lead before falling just short in crunch time.
It was bound to happen at some point in the season that the Spurs would lose a game to a bad team. Hopefully this is the only one the team loses this season. The Spurs could have taken the top spot in the West tonight as the Thunder somehow lost to the Nets, but the best in the West lost to the worst of the East tonight. Weird. As long as we're busting trends, let's see the boys get up for Saturday's contest with the Clippers and beat a good team for once.
Popovich post-game on the difference in the game.
Defensively, we just didn't play aggressively, physically; I thought they were much more physical than we were, and most of the time physical, aggressive teams are going to win in the NBA, and I thought we were very poor in that area. We should be embarrassed about how soft we played tonight.
Reporter: Defensively, what's been different the last couple of weeks, compared to the first month of the season?
I don't think there is anything different, I don't think we've been that great at all this year defensively. I mean, the numbers might show something, but I don't think we had a very tough schedule to begin the year. I thought we had tough travel, but we didn't have big-time opponents, for sure...I didn't see the aggressiveness and the passion the way I saw in the Knick players tonight. They wanted it more than we did, that's the bottom line, they wanted it more, and they got it, so I credit them with that.
Reporter: Can you talk a little bit about the performance you did get out of Marco tonight?
[Marco] did well offensively.