Gregg Popovich doubles down on his decision to grab stadium mic and slam his own fans for booing Kawhi Leonard – as he labels Spurs fans’ chants as ‘hateful’ and ‘mean-spirited’ and says he took action when calls got ‘uglier’

Gregg Popovich called the Spurs fans’ booing over Kawhi Leonard “hateful” and “mean-spirited,” and the San Antonio coach has no regrets about taking the microphone and begging the home crowd to turn it off.

“Absolutely not,” Popovich said Friday night before the Spurs played the Warriors. ‘It’s quite easy to understand. I listened to it for a while and it just kept getting louder and louder and uglier and uglier, and I felt sorry for him, and I felt ashamed of our city, of our organization.

‘Because that is not who we are, that is not how we have behaved for the past 25 years. It is the opposite of the way we have behaved, the way we have worked in the community.”

While Popovich considered it a “one-off” behavior by the fans and credited them for their years of support, he still felt it was extremely disrespectful to treat former Spurs All-Star Leonard, now with the Clippers, that way upon his return to the club. Frostbank Centre.

Late in the first half of Wednesday’s 109-102 loss, Popovich grabbed the microphone and told the crowd to stop the booing. San Antonio lost its 10th straight game.

Leonard spent the first seven years of his career in San Antonio and rose to stardom

“It’s kind of indicative of the world we live in today. It was hateful,” Popovich said. ‘It was really disrespectful, it was just mean. We are the team that when someone comes back to town after being a Spur, so you come back to town for the first time, we show a video of them.

“I remember when Kawhi and Danny Green came back from Toronto, we showed videos of those guys and the crowd didn’t react that way. That tells the whole story, and now it’s five years later, six years later, and that’s going to happen.”

Warriors coach Steve Kerr talks to his players about the booing that comes with being a professional athlete, but that can cross the line and is certainly not expected when it’s a player who has meant so much to a franchise.

Popovich told Spurs fans to stop booing Leonard because they were ‘poking the bear’

Kevin Durant, a two-time NBA Finals MVP with the Warriors, was welcomed with a warm ovation when he finally faced Golden State last month for the first time in front of the fans on opening night with Phoenix since his departure after the 2018-19 season.

Popovich noted that the amount of hate in the world right now makes the fans’ behavior even more shameful — not to mention having to fuel Leonard’s play.

‘I think it’s indicative of how the world works now. There’s enough hate in the world that I think that’s completely inappropriate.

“This is not what you would teach your children,” Popovich said. “…So it doesn’t make any sense, it’s unwise, so on any level I don’t regret it at all.”