Because Gregg Popovich hates fun and merriment, Tim Duncan will watch perhaps the most anticipated game of the NBA season between the Spurs and the Warriors on Monday from the sidelines.
San Antonio announced on Twitter Sunday that the legendary big man has been ruled out of the team’s matchup against the defending champs due to right knee soreness.
INJURY REPORT – Tim Duncan (soreness, right knee) is out for tomorrow's Spurs-Warriors game.
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) January 24, 2016
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, who just made his return to the Golden State bench on Friday, reacted to the news of Duncan’s absence with this gem, per Monte Poole of CSN Bay Area:
Steve Kerr on Duncan sitting out Monday's game: He 'is 57 years old' and needs a day off occasionally.
— Monte Poole (@MontePooleCSN) January 24, 2016
Shots fired. But friendly ones, nevertheless.
Kerr and Duncan go way back, of course, as the two were teammates on the Spurs for four seasons back in Kerr’s playing days, winning two championships (in 1999 and 2003) together. They have remained quite convivial in recent years too.
What makes this even funnier is that Kerr himself isn’t even 57 yet, having just turned 50 last September.
In any case, sitting the actually-39-year-old Duncan is a classic Spurs tactic meant to get into a fellow contender’s head and prevent them from actually knowing what the San Antonio lineup will really look like until the playoffs.
Hopefully this means that we get to see the Spurs counter Kerr’s small-ball unit of doom and gloom with 7-foot-3 Boban Marjanovic.
H/T NBA Reddit
