Pop laments Spurs' transition D: 'You'd have traded all the players and fired me'

The San Antonio Spurs are now in a best-of-three series with the Houston Rockets, and coach Gregg Popovich knows his team needs to shore up their transition defense if they plan on moving on to the Western Conference Finals.

"For us our bible begins with transition defense, and if it's not there, we're just not ready to go," Popovich told reporters after Houston's 125-104 win Sunday. "If you had seen clips of our transition D, you would have traded all the players and fired me by the end of the game. It was that bad."

Transition defense is a must against a Mike D'Antoni team with the firepower of these Rockets, who ran out to a 27-14 first-quarter lead and never really looked back.

"They were that intense," Popovich added.

Two days after scoring 43 points in a Game 3 loss, James Harden had one of his best all-around games of the postseason, putting up 28 points and 12 assists - only his third double-digit dime game of the playoffs, despite leading the NBA in that category this season.