An unusual situation caught the attention of the basketball world on Wednesday (22). Coach Gregg Popovich, NBA legend and Spurs coach, simply took the microphone from the arena's sound system in the middle of the game and asked the fans to stop booing Kawhi Leonard,, who won the league championship with the Spurs in 2014.
Since the start of the game, Kawhi had been booed with every touch of the ball, as he left the team in a rather bitter way in the summer of 2018. The athlete was booed several times by the home crowd when he got to the free throw line during the second quarter.
Gregg Popovich stops the game
Visibly irritated by the crowd's reaction, Popovich surprised everyone in the arena by grabbing the organization's microphone in the middle of his former player's free throws.
"Excuse me, just a second. Stop booing and let the guys play. We're not like that. Stop booing."
Even though Kawhi won the NBA title and stood out as the best player of the finals in the 2014 season, his departure was not well accepted by the fans. In 2018, he asked to be traded and, in his first season with the Toronto Raptors, he won the league trophy again.
"If I'm not wearing the Spurs jersey, they'll probably boo me for the rest of my career. Like I said, they're one of the best fans in the league and they're very competitive," Leonard said after the game.
End of the game
Despite the booing, in the end the Clippers won 109-102, with Leonard scoring 26 points and being named the game's top scorer. As a result, the San Antonio Spurs are now 3 wins and 12 losses down on the year. The Clippers, meanwhile, picked up their third win in a row to make it six wins and six losses on the season.