OPINION / ANALYSIS
NEW ORLEANS – Watching his Hornets lose to the Knicks was bad enough for Byron Scott to endure.
But for 36 or so hours, New Orleans’ head coach seethed, getting more and more frustrated until finally, and some would say not so gracefully, he reached his boiling point.
Wednesday morning during shoot around, Scott watched his guards go through drills, finishing them picture-perfectly.
It was the last straw.
Scott stopped the drill and began a speech that eventually, the entire team heard.
It also might eventually be called the turning point in the 2009-10 season.
“Right now we’re 15 basketball players,” Scott said he told his team. “We’re not a team. We’re a collection of individual basketball players right now.”
Scott was upset that his players would practice like they were supposed to, but there was no carry-over to the games.
He even joked that maybe he should bring the court from the Alario Center, where the team practices, over to New Orleans from Westwego.
Hours later in the New Orleans Arena, ground zero for Scott’s speech in the morning, the Hornets began to show that they can learn after all.
New Orleans communicated on the court, transitioned defensively and ran the offense like it’s supposed to be run and because of that, earned a hard-fought 114-107 overtime win over Southwest Division rival Dallas.
“It was definitely a team effort overall on offense and defense,” backup guard Bobby Brown said. “Everybody was talking. Everybody was being competitive. Everybody was showing emotion. Everybody was playing together. Everybody was more of a team.”
For the first time all season, New Orleans looked to be a team that could compete on a nightly basis with some of the league’s best. Two nights after falling to one of the league’s lower tier teams, the Hornets held their own against an upper echelon opponent.
No, it wasn’t perfect and it certain wasn’t beautiful. But sometimes there’s beauty in a tough, rough win.
New Orleans’ bench contributed 31 points. The Hornets outscored the Mavericks 52-34 in the paint. The home team forced 17 turnovers while committing only 13. And Dallas’ offensive rebounding totaled only 12 boards, a great decrease over the 20-plus Sacramento recorded in the same building five days earlier.
“It was better,” Scott said. “We’ve got a ways to go but it was better.”
