Los Angeles, CA

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich called his team's first-round sweep of the injury-ravaged Los Angeles Lakers as "unfair fight".

"It wasn't a fair fight. When you're a competitor, you want to compete on an even basis and the Lakers weren't able to do that," said Popovich, whose wards completed the sweep with a 103-82 win Sunday.

The Spurs had an easy time dominating the Lakers, who played without Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Steve Blake, Jodie Meeks and Metta World Peace.

Despite Los Angeles' depleted line-up, Popovich said they took the Lakers seriously.

"We respected them every night," said Popovich. "We played hard, followed the game plan and we were very active and energetic every night, and sometimes that's hard to do when your opponent is wounded."

For his part, top reserve Manu Ginobili said that it was hard to gauge the Spurs' performance against a team that was not in full strength.

"It's really hard to measure [this series] because [the Lakers] were missing five players in the last two games," said Ginobili.

"Obviously I am happy we won, but it was just weird," said Tony Parker. "Obviously they were missing a lot of guys so we were just happy to go to the next round."

The Spurs will face the winner of the Denver Nuggets-Golden State Warriors first-round series in the Western Conference semifinal. The Warriors grabbed a 3-1 edge with a 115-101 victory Sunday.

 

Spurs Coach on Sweep of Lakers: 'It wasn't a fair fight'

 

iHaveNet.com