SAN ANTONIO — It was one of the most nail-biting, hard-fought NBA championships for the San Antonio Spurs in 2005 against the Detroit Pistons.
The two teams relied heavily on defense, and it was a slow, grind-it-out, physical battle on the court for seven games.
The rosters boasted lockdown defenders like Tim Duncan, Bruce Bowen, Rip Hamilton, and Ben Wallace.
The series also didn't light up the scoreboard nightly.
This is why Gregg Popovich doesn't think the NBA will ever go back to implementing rules to go back to that style of play and keep going with the more offensive-minded games.
"The league has decided how they want this to be played, and we've been doing it for quite a while now," he said. "It's not going in any other direction because the fans love it."
Currently, the NBA scoring average is at 115.5 points per game. It has increased over the last two seasons, with the average at 110.6 in the 2021-22 season and last season at 114.7.
Gone are the days of hand-checking and slower-paced games, which is why the longtime Spurs coach jokes that the league must have been less than thrilled by the style of play between San Antonio and Detroit in the 2005 NBA championship.
"I'll give you the proof of that. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm going to guess that our 2005 championship against Detroit had the entire league office just hiding and biting their lip and hoping it would be over quickly," he said. "Because it was so fricking boring."
That series was a slog scoring-wise.
The Pistons averaged 86.7 points per game, while the Spurs recorded 84.9. In addition, both teams recorded a pace of 80.8. Compare that to the 99.2 pace average this season
Detroit was the only team in the series to record over 100 points in Game 4, with 107 in a win over the Spurs. The Spurs never topped 100 points; their highest-scoring output was 97 points in a Game 2 win.
"Seven games you had to watch that crap; beating each other up and very low scoring for sure," Popovich added.
Indeed, the league is now very offensive-minded, with three-point shooting at a premium and rules favoring more offense over defense. For example, Sixers' Joel Embiid scored 70 points on the Spurs Monday night and Wolves' Karl Anthony-Towns scored 62 on the same night.
And even though they say defense wins titles, Popovich believes the NBA will likely never return to the way it was.
"You think they want that to come back? There's no way," he said.