If anyone watched the post game interview, Pop repeatedly said “YOU DON’T POKE THE BEAR”. Unless I missed something, he didn’t mention anything about “that’s not who we are” or anything about culture or anything along those lines. (in the post game interview)
I think he knows this about Kawhi: he is a bear that plays better poked.
Or maybe the team as a whole, and I think what Pop was trying to do by stopping the booing was to minimize the gas that was being continuously poured onto their fire. He was was trying to give the kids a better chance.
That’s what I choose to think and I am keeping my tinfoil hat on. GOSPURSGO
edit: I enjoy booing Kawhi just as much as the next Spurs fan, but if you told me “Don’t ask me how I know this, but if you stop booing right now, our odds of winning the game go way up.” I would probably stop to get the W.
He probably meant both statements.
He just couldn’t say “Don’t poke the bear” out loud in the arena.
And he couldn’t double down on the “yeah the fans are being disrespectful and petty about an old story they don’t know the full story about, even though he’s one of our 3 finals MVPs and got us a ring”.
In a press conference, that’s a bit of a bad look and invites too many unwanted questions.
So he said each in these 2 different situations.