Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich:
(On Kawhi Leonard’s injury…)
“It’s a pain thing. He can’t move his hand. He can’t catch and dribble and all that kind of stuff with his hand so hopefully something will happen. Medically, they don’t think he can hurt it any more than it’s hurt now, so that’s good. It’s just a matter of when he can get use of the hand because it’s just too stiff. He’s running around, sweating, running sprints, and doing things on the bikes. It keeps you decent, but it’s never like being out on the court starting and stopping and reacting, we all know that. He’ll be out of shape when he does come back for sure.”
(On the Spurs’ progress this season…)
“It doesn’t really matter if you look at any team. It doesn’t matter if it’s us, Oklahoma City, or the Clippers. You have some tough losses and some really good wins. You just move forward. It doesn’t really matter. You just do your job. That’s the best route to take. Otherwise you get bogged down in things that don’t matter.”
(On managing team injuries…)
“I worry about it every day. People have been calling us old for like 10 years it seems like, but it’s true. We are getting older and those injuries take a toll the older you get. You wonder more than you have in the past, will these injuries keep us from being as healthy as we need to be come playoff time. It’s not just if we’re healthy we are fine. It’s out of your control so we just move on. The biggest worry is probably playing guys too many minutes in the meantime. Timmy (Duncan) has played too many minutes and Manu (Ginobili) has played too many minutes. I have to try to take care of that over time, so we can be as energetic and fresh as we can possibly be. It’s not like we’re just automatically in the playoffs. There are a lot of good teams out here.”
(On Patty Mills’ injury…)
“He actually was cleared two days ago on the 23rd. I’m going to hold him off as long as I can. There will be a point where he won’t allow me to do that anymore, and that’s fine. I just want to feel better. I always air on the conservative side, and I just want to feel better if he takes more time and gets knocked around on the (practice) court a little more in our sessions. I know if he screws up the shoulder now, we’re going to lose him for the rest of the year, and he’s way too important. He affects our offense significantly.”