Spurs Gregg Popovich gets 1000th NBA Win

Gregg Popovich has joined the 1,000 club.

During Monday's night game against the Indiana Pacers, the San Antonio Spurs came back from behind in the fourth quarter to win the game 95-93 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

The win gave head coach Popovich his 1,000th NBA career win, a feat he accomplished in his 19 years of coaching the Spurs. Only one other coach has reached 1,000 wins with one team. That coach was Jerry Sloan, who won 1,127 games with Utah.

"I've been here a long time and I've had good players. That's the formula," Popovich said. "Getting the players is difficult, but I've been fortunate to have good ones. The time, that's the most important element. You have to be around for a while I guess."

Prior to reaching the milestone, Popovich did not want to talk about it at all. When one reporter asked him about the possibility that he could earn his 1,000th career win in his home state of Indiana, Popovich cut the question off.

"Oh, jeez. Here we go," he said. "You ask questions like that which demands trite answers, right? You already know the trite answer and go ahead and say them and I'll say I said them."

The Spurs almost left Indiana with a loss. During the first two quarters, the Pacers never let up and stayed very close. After halftime, however, the Pacers' offense came alive as they outscored the Spurs 34 to 18. The Spurs went into the fourth quarter trailing by 14 points.

Regardless of the lead, the Spurs were able to come back and close the gap. With 2.1 seconds remaining, Spurs Marco Belinelli made an 18-foot baseline jump shot to get the 95-93 lead. Pacers George Hill was not able to pull the upset when he missed his three-pointer, making Popovich the ninth NBA coach to reach 1,000.   

"A thousand wins, that's a lot of wins and I feel very lucky that I've been with him for a lot of them," Tony Parker said. "We've experienced so much stuff together. I'm just very happy for him."

"(Popovich) probably downplayed it as much as I will," Tim Duncan said. "It's another win. It'll look great when we look back on it."

Popovich celebrated the win like it was any other win. He walked to midcourt and placed his arm around Pacers coach Frank Vogel before hugging Hill, his former player. He then walked to the Spurs' locker room.

"He's somebody that all of us active coaches look up to and sort of the godfather of the active coaches right now," Vogel said. "We all look up to him and try to emulate him and try to learn from him."

The Spurs are headed to Detroit on Wednesday.