A very good explanation. I would add that if you have teammates they can cover the attacks. There are several ways to do this. In the simplest implementation, you just use your teammates as dampers so you have to do much less accelerations. A more advanced option (which is not always feasible) would be to heave one of your teammates (preferably quite high in GC - let’s say Kruiswijk or Kuss) follow the attacker (Pogacar) threatening to drop him once he gets tired and gaining GC advantage over him thus forcing him to attack more carefully. In the meantime you have you diesel-engine teammate (let’s say WvA) bring you back or at least keep you relatively close so you can bridge yourself once the attacker is tired.
There are of course different variations how to deploy your team in the climb and not all of them are feasible. For instance, TJV might not have a guy that is close in GC and at the same time is capable of following Pogacars attack. Kuss could have the acceleration to follow but will not be a GC threat to Pogi while WvA and Kruijswijk should be a GC threat but are both diesels incapable of following Tadej’s accelerations. Ineos could be better of in this respect because they have explosive GC threat guy (Caracaz if in form) which could cover attacks for G…
Edit: and another important thing - as
@johnymax already hinted, if the attacker is too strong all these fancy tactical options won’t do a thing. Then you still have Kuss pace you up the Angliru and saving you a couple of seconds that you can use to win la Vuelta one week later…