Pelicans Head Coach Stan Van Gundy
On the lack of half-court hustle, turnovers, and second-chance points:
“Yes, all of them. Look, we didn’t really play a good first half. We played a really good first eight minutes; that’s what we played tonight. We got stops, and we got out and ran. I thought we were really good in the first eight minutes, and after that, really the last forty minutes of the game it was all them. The uncommon problem for us tonight was not being able to rebound the ball. We came in as the best rebounding team in the league on both boards, and we couldn’t get a rebound tonight. LaMelo (Ball) got five offensive rebounds. They tore us apart on second chance points, so that’s an uncommon problem for us. The common problem is the 19 turnovers. It has got to stop. We can’t be a good team in this league when you just turn the ball over. Unforced turnovers and just giving the ball – they had 27 points off of our turnovers. It makes it tough to win. Your margin for error is small. Defensively, I think from a coaching standpoint, we really have to go back and look at some things because right now we’re giving up everything. Again, we gave up a lot of threes, but we gave up 44 points in the paint. Also, we fouled tonight. We really didn’t do anything well defensively, and I said this before the last game, but our defensive drop-off from the time coming out of training camp has been very noticeable. I thought we came out of camp with a real defensive mentality. We still made mistakes, but we came out with a defensive mentality. Over the last four games, we’ve had very little defensive mentality and defensive disposition, so we have to look at how much of that is just things where we have to be fundamentally better defensively – individually and as a team. We also have to look at whatever adjustments we might have to make as a coaching staff with some of our schemes.”
On the team’s inability to close games and how to improve in that area:
“Well, we can’t get stops. If you go back to the San Antonio game, that was a close game that we won. In the Toronto game, we got stops in both games at the end of the game. We had trouble in the Toronto game defensively, and down the stretch, we got stops. The San Antonio game, we got stops down the stretch. The entire second half tonight, we couldn’t stop them at all. I mean, we could not stop them. When they missed, we couldn’t get a rebound, so they’d still end up with a bucket. It was very very frustrating – I’m sure for our players, and it was frustrating to watch. We’ve got to get a lot better at the defensive end of the floor. I think we should be a good defensive team. I think we should be a top ten defensive team. Over the last four games, we’re a bottom ten defensive team. That can’t be us. We can’t win like that, and we’ve got to get at least in the top half of the league in taking care of the ball. If we can do those two things, we’re going to be good…but those are big asks right now.”
Pelicans guard Josh Hart
On the defensive drop-off since training camp:
“Well yeah I think everyone’s seeing it. I think we’ve just got to focus on getting stops. I think that’s the biggest thing at the end of the day. You know we’re a very athletic team; we’re a fast team. We want to get out there on the break, but we’ve gotta make sure we get stops and to possess it with a rebound. So we’ve just gotta go back to the basics on that and get our defense back. When we have a shot, stop transition buckets from going in, and play how we know we can play. So little bit of a drop-off, but the good thing about the league is we’ve got another game in a day or two. We’ve got a long road trip. We’ve gotta fix it now so we can stop the bleeding.”
On what is seen in some of these late game situations and not being able to close games out:
“We’ve gotta learn…learn how to play with a lead, be composed, get stops on the defensive end. Run, play our game, do those kinds of things. Don’t let them speed us up. Don’t give them easy second chance opportunities or easy transition buckets or anything like that. So we’ve just gotta realize how to play with a lead and do the little things to help us win.”
Pelicans Forward Zion Williamson
On losing three straight games down the stretch:
“We just can’t have that many turnovers. You know turnovers add up throughout the game, and we’ve just got to eliminate those.”
On solving the turnover issue:
“I think it’s just as the season goes on, we’re going to learn each other. We’re going to learn…like I said two days ago, we’re going to learn ourselves, learn the players. Like when a player is in a certain spot with the ball, we’ll know where to be. Just continuing to learn the teammates.”
