Defense is about Desire and Focus on Fundamentals

NBA head coach of the New Orleans Hornets Byron Scott reminded his team recently about the basics of defense and the importance of focusing on defensive fundamentals. "Defense is all about desire and wanting to do it. It has nothing to do with skill. So we've just got to get back to our defensive principles and understanding what we need to do on every play. We were trying to rely too much on our offense, trying to outscore people. There's going to be nights when we're not going to be able to make shots or throw it in the ocean. We've got to be able to rely on our defense a lot more.Right now, we're having a lot of trouble on the defensive end. Specifically, guarding guys off the dribble, number one, and protecting that paint, number two. The third thing is when we're getting beat, we're fouling too much. We've got to do a better job, maybe go back to the drawing board, think about some of the things on our defensive concepts that we talked about and get better at it.The focus on that end has to be better. As far as us understanding what our principles are, I think we understand them. We've just got to get back to doing them on a day-to-day basis. This is not the time to lose desire to play defense; this is the times we've got to pick it back up." Perhaps no one on this team understands the importance of this focus like Scott who played on NBA championship teams during his tenure on the LA Lakers.