Before the start of Game 3, while reviewing the video of the first two games with the Spurs staff, Popovich suddenly fell silent.
To describe Qin Yue's performance, Spurs assistant coach Budenholzer used a specific term:
— Explosive creativity.
In the first two games, just looking at technical stats, Qin Yue only totaled 16 assists.
On some nights in this era, that's merely a game worth of data for Steve Nash.
"He influences our defense every possession, whether it's by passing, setting screens, or coordinating hand-offs with teammates. These on-court performances that cannot be captured in technical statistics have ultimately become the key for the Warriors to break our zone defense on the court. If we can't use tougher defense to curb his play, then in this series, we can only try to increase our three-point output to match the Warriors' perimeter firepower."
