Popovich was annoyed, he didn't expect the 76ers' starting lineup to be inseparable from his own team. Originally, he intended to gain an advantage when the two sides started against each other, but now that the two sides are tied, the Spurs' disadvantage in the bench will be immediately exposed, and the 76ers' bench depth is among the best in the league.

In fact, Popovich has always paid attention to strengthening the rotation lineup, in addition to Malik Rose, both Antonio Daniels and Terry Porter are very useful substitutes. Of course, they also have a future league-leading scorer Stephen Jackson on the bench, who was the leader of the "Golden State Gang" in his previous life, but now Jackson is just a water cooler keeper who averages 3.9 points and 1.1 rebounds in 9.9 minutes per game.

But compared to the 76ers, this lineup looks a little shabby, what is the bench lineup sent by Brown now? Point guard McGee, point guard Snow, small forward Arenas, power forward Hill, and center Bowler, among which Snow, Arenas, and Bowler Bowler are all players with starting strength. Originally, the 76ers' rotation lineup was the top in the league, and now putting Hellam Porter in it is simply like a tiger with wings, how can the Spurs resist it?

By the end of the first quarter, the 76ers had a seven-point lead over the Spurs, thanks to a fire-powered Arenas. Arenas' desire to score is very strong in this game, and his teammates who play with him are also happy to be adults, since Arenas is willing to take on the responsibility of scoring, it is good to pass the ball to him. Arena scored 10 points on a burst shot and helped the 76ers turn the tide before the start of the second quarter. But...... Well, in fact, the 76ers were just behind in the score before, and the two sides were still evenly matched in the situation, and Arenas just helped the team take the lead.

However, this is definitely not what Popovich wants, although the Spurs are not the Western Conference regular season champions, but against the mediocre 76ers on the inside, Popovich is confident that he can beat his opponents in what he does best. But now they are the lagging side, and this is not going according to the predetermined plan at all! The way the 76ers responded was a huge surprise to Popovich.

The most critical problem now is that the Spurs' pure bench lineup is far from the 76ers, and Popovich has no available soldiers, although he is known for using young players well, but it seems a little late to tap the future "Captain Jack" at this time, and the only way is to let the main players play longer, especially Duncan, so that they may be able to regain the advantage.

Don't look at Popovich's previous life, he played the rotation and rotation very well, at this time he still likes to play the main force like other coaches, although the playing time of others is very average, but Duncan has to play an average of 40.6 minutes per game, and Robinson, who is in second place, only averages 29.5 minutes per game, so that Duncan can play more is actually Popovich's regular strategy.

But he forgot one thing, Duncan is indeed an inside wizard in the league, but he is ultimately a behemoth with a height of 2.11 meters and a weight of more than 110 kilograms, no matter how fast he is and how agile he is, he is not as good as Lewis, who has always been used as an outside shooter.

Maybe Lewis was still lacking in this area, but Chang Wei has trained him for two seasons, and even a pig will change. And Lewis himself is also a star embryo, although he is not at the top of the league, but as a second-tier star is more than enough, so his speed and agility have naturally improved significantly.

So when Duncan faced Lewis again, he still couldn't do anything about this thin but fast-moving big man, and he didn't dare to switch defenses directly after Lewis covered. Kidding aside, who else among the Spurs' perimeter players can interfere with a 2.08-meter-tall heavy gun? Robinson? By the time he moved from the basket to the high post, it was estimated that Shi Shiran had already hit a three-pointer and high-fived his teammates while defending!

Lewis, who was supposed to be the weakness of the 76ers, turned out to be a big problem for the Spurs in this game, and no one expected this before the game. Of course, Lewis himself was excited, after all, he couldn't just pull an inside line to take advantage of Duncan, but at least in this game, he did most of the things that the inside line couldn't.

Of course, Chang Wei, who made this suggestion, did not plan to eat all over the world with one move, and with Popovich's unpredictable mind, he might be able to come up with a countermeasure in the next game. But so what? It's already good to be able to win a game with this strange lineup, after all, the Spurs are the champions of the West, and it's not common to change the lineup to win the game casually.

In the face of the 76ers' lineup, the Spurs were in a state of confusion almost all the time, and Popovich didn't even dare to send substitute players casually, especially the pure substitute lineup, for fear of being taken away by the 76ers. This made several of the Spurs' main players play more than 30 minutes in this game, and Duncan even played as many as 43 minutes, resulting in a significant drop in the Spurs' shooting percentage at the end of the fourth quarter.

The most striking thing about the game was of course Lewis, who didn't have a good stat for the most part, scoring just 14 points and six rebounds in the game, which was a no-pass for an impostor five. But this guy has a team-high 9 assists, which is a bit scary, considering that as an endpoint, he is only averaging 2.3 assists per game this season.

Although Lewis only grabbed 6 rebounds and was a little sorry for his height, the 76ers only trailed 42-47 in total rebounds, similar to the situation in the first quarter, they almost lost on offensive rebounds, and "not grabbing offensive rebounds" is already an important instruction of the coach, so it is completely acceptable to only 5 rebounds less than the opponent.

Looking at the technical statistics of both sides, Popovich was also at a loss, he had never lost a game when Duncan cut 30+20 before this. But as long as you look at the statistics of the 76ers, he will understand that when all the players on a team are playing at a normal level on the court, and some of them can still play abnormally, even if Duncan cuts 40+30, he may not be able to win, and this time Popovich, who is committed to teamwork, finally learned a lesson from his teacher again.