LOS ANGELES -- In the aftermath of their loss to the Clippers in Game 7 on Saturday, the sting of losing eclipsed any immediate notion of this being the end of the Spurs as we've known them.
At least for now.
Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili will be free agents on July 1. So will Danny Green. Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford will gather with the staff and meet with the players individually on Monday, as always happens when a season ends -- and they always end, one way or another -- to discuss the future.
All Popovich had on Saturday night, after his team's 111-109 loss to the Clippers, was a gut feeling. And surprisingly enough, he shared it.
"I mean people ask me about Tim and Manu and myself for the last five years, what we're going to do," he said. "It's all psycho-babble. I have no clue. We'll probably come back. Paycheck is pretty good."
Informed of Popovich's tongue-in-cheek (or was it?) proclamation, the 39-year-old Duncan said, "If that's what he said, that's what he said. I'm not making any statements thus far."
Ginobili, 37, failed to even shoot his age in the series (35 percent) and was a non-factor. He said he needs some time to talk it over with his family so he can "step back, wait, let it sink and make a decision."
Retirement, he said, "could happen, easily."
"Some days you feel proud and you think you did great," he said. "And other games I say, 'What the hell am I doing here? Why don't I stay home and enjoy my kids?' It's a tough moment."
The last time Ginobili didn't have a contract and decided to come back, after the Spurs lost to the Heat in devastating fashion in the 2013 NBA Finals, he said he was partially motivated by the disappointment of losing -- and partially by the fact that he still had more to give.
"I was very disappointed," he said. "I was hurt; very hurt. But it was not that challenge. It was that I didn't feel that I was an ex-player yet; that I still had a lot of things to enjoy, challenges. And I did enjoy the last two years, so we'll see."
After the game -- after this epic series was over -- Popovich said his postgame speech was "short and sweet."
"I just told them I was proud of them," he said. "I thought they laid it all on the line. Timmy, again, he's a miracle to me at 39, what he does out there. I've never seen anybody do that at 39, the way he plays at both ends of the court. He's just an ultimate competitor.
"That was about it," Pop said. "We're proud of you, and we'll get together. We know how to win, we know how to lose, and we'll go to dinner."
Spoken like a true champion.
