What was Pop thinking?

Last night, Pop pulled his starters late in the 3rd qtr and put in the 2nd unit. The Spurs were down 16 at the time and the 2nd unit led the team to a comeback (and a 9 point lead going into the final 5 minutes). Pop, however, didn't choose to put his starters (or even ONE of them) back in to hold off the Mavericks, who proceeded to go on an 11-2 run and tie the game, sending it to OT (despite Danny Green's best efforts).

You'd have to think at this point Pop would send his starters out, or at least let Tony Parker go out there to run the offense. Nope, keeps the same 5 guys in (later subbing in Kawhi Leonard as the only sub) for the OT session and proceeds to lose the game in OT.

I have two lines of thinking on this.

1. WHAT THE HELL, MAN! You cost your team the game! I would have to think that if here we to get his (more than fresh) starters back in the game, they would have been able to preserve the 9 point lead and win the game in regulation. But at the same time..

2. Smart man to look towards the future. He knows that the Spurs are going to the post-season. And he realizes that with the team he currently has constructed (just a tad bit on the OLD side..), he'll need to get a lot from his reserves come April, May, and June if he wants to go far. The ability to both get his young guys playing time is huge, but equally - if not more - huge is the ability to get them crunch time minutes. Danny Green really showed people something down the stretch of that game. That gives Pop more leverage in the future to trust his young guy to make big shots in crucial spots.

It's easy to point to this one game and say that in all likelihood he cost his team a game, but in the long-run I think he did his team a favor. And hey, .1 seconds doesn't erase the fact that Green took and MADE a game-winning shot at the buzzer over the defending champs. Whether or not it counted is irrelevant to his psyche going forward.