Before Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs stole a win at the Los Angeles Clippers last night, Gregg Popovich addressed his team’s long-term goals for this season with typical pragmatism. Can the Spurs ever play as well as they did in the last three games of June’s NBA Finals? Maybe, but the reigning Coach of the Year insists San Antonio won’t ever be better than that.

Something else interesting from Pop: "We'll never play better than we did the last three games of the Finals." — Jeff McDonald (@JMcDonald_SAEN) November 11, 2014

Pop basically admits there's no room for improvement on end of last season. Best case is just to get close to that level. Brutal honesty. — Jeff McDonald (@JMcDonald_SAEN) November 11, 2014

Pop: "If we could duplicate that (how Spurs played in Finals), I would take it. And it's either good enough or it isn't." — Jeff McDonald (@JMcDonald_SAEN) November 11, 2014

This is something we touched on in response to the Spurs’ mesmerizing play against Miami – namely, wondering if any team could ever duplicate that specific group’s success.

Everything came together at the right time for San Antonio in Games 3, 4, and 5. Veterans played like youngsters, journeyman played like starters, and Leonard played like a superstar. The result was a more beautiful brand of basketball than we’ve ever seen.

Here are a couple tweets we sent while watching the first half of Game 3:

I can't breathe. This is crazy. — Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) June 11, 2014

That was so incredible that it didn't even feel like basketball. What did I just watch? — Jack Winter (@ArmstrongWinter) June 11, 2014

In that decisive trio of games, the Spurs’ offensive efficiency was a blistering 124.2. Their defensive efficiency was a solid 98.8 despite LeBron James’ singular brilliance. Their rebound rate was 54.6 percent. They assisted on 61.7 percent of made baskets. They shot 54.2 percent from the field and 44.8 from beyond the arc.