ESPN analyst Jalen Rose conducted his first ever sideline interview with San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich on Wednesday night. Most of you already understand how difficult of a task that is. And Jalen actually pulled it off.
Believe it or not, Rose even made Popovich laugh. Granted, the Spurs were leading 35-29 after the first quarter at the time of the interview. They had also won 10 games in a row at the time (11 now including last night’s win), so Rose kind of had it easy. Still, Pop liked his joke about Avery Johnson.
“I look at (Johnson’s) numbers and Doris Burke wanted me to ask you,” Rose said. “How did he get his number retired — or how much did he pay you — only averaging 10 points?”
“And he can only go left,” Pop shot back.
Johnson played several seasons under Popovich in the 1990s. Pop walked away chuckling, which is incredibly rare for an in-game interview. There’s a reason reporters do stuff like this to determine who gets to interview Pop. Rose caught him on a great night.
