Despite an array of injuries and resulting lineup changes in 2019-20, New Orleans was one of the NBA’s best three-point shooting teams and often performed at an elite level offensively. It didn’t take much film analysis to figure out where the 30-42 Pelicans needed to improve, however, after they spent much of the season ranked near the bottom in key defensive statistics. They finished 21st in efficiency.
With that in mind, during his first team practice as head coach Sunday, Stan Van Gundy devoted his energy and emphasis to defensive work. For several Pelicans young players, defense is the aspect of the game where they can make the greatest strides, which is also the case for the team overall.
“Day 1 you want to set the tone,” Van Gundy said. “For us, it was defense, first and foremost. I thought it was important this year, with me coming in new, that we went right to the priority first. Today we wanted to get a defensive mentality and how we wanted to play on the defensive end of the floor.”
Van Gundy indicated that he was pleased with the conditioning level of the 17 players on hand, who spent time playing some four-on-four to do on-court learning about the team’s defensive system and concepts. Van Gundy added second-year players Zion Williamson and Nickeil Alexander-Walker most exceeded their individual goals on conditioning testing.
“We did a lot of defensive work,” Van Gundy said. “In fact, that’s all we did, was defensive work.”
“Today’s emphasis was the defensive end,” forward Brandon Ingram said. “Every coverage we’re doing. It was very detailed from top to bottom. It was really a mental day for us (to focus on learning).”
Williamson had a very concise way to summarize Sunday’s lengthy practice: “Defense, defense and more defense.”
Williamson also noted that he’s excited to start 2020-21 with no restrictions or limitations on his playing time or usage. During his January return to the court last season – as well as his appearances in the Orlando bubble – he often was held to a specific minute limit for games, or kept to shorter “bursts” within a game.
“When you’re finally able to step on the court (after an injury), three minutes go by, and (the horn sounds) and you have to get subbed out,” Williamson said of last season. “I think I did the best I possibly could. But (this season) is going to be a lot different. Me and Coach Van Gundy talked, and from what I know now, there are no restrictions. None.”
Asked for his outlook based on learning that piece of information, Williamson smiled widely, responding, “I love to play basketball. No restrictions? Why wouldn’t I love that?”
With their regular season opener vs. Toronto just 17 days away, the Pelicans – along with every NBA team – have great urgency to install their system and concepts, but Van Gundy pointed out that a shrunken timeline may force him to be careful about trying to do too much, too quickly.
“You’ve got to be ready to play (soon with the opener Dec. 23), but I’m also new, and we’ve got a lot of new players,” Van Gundy said. “I don’t want to build the house so quickly and be in such a rush that I don’t put a foundation in. I can get the house up a lot quicker if I don’t do that, but I think it would be a mistake in the long run. We will try to speed up, but you don’t want to skip important stuff, either. We’ll be ready to go on the 23rd to play. We may not have everything in our bag at that point, but we’ll be ready and try to be solid with what we do.”
