Following Wednesday’s 111-102 home loss vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green discussed the rough stretch that his group is currently going through (1-6 in last seven games).
(via New Orleans Pelicans):
Reporter: “That offensive identity, it just seems like that one of the bigger things has been there’s just been some stagnancy with the ball movement, player movement, screens, just all of those things that earlier in the season the Pelicans were a fast moving offensive team, the 0.5 that you always talked about. Now, these last seven games in particular, it seems the ball and the team is moving at a much slower pace and the assists are down, turnovers up. Is it mental? Have you reached a wall as a team at this point of the season? Is it something where you want to reinforce the basics? Or is it just the myriad of combination of things that have happened over the last month?”
Green: “It’s a combination, but we’re in the toughest stretch of our season, as far as games, and as we’re going through this stretch, we also were missing guys. So we’re asking guys to take, once again, steps up, and sometimes our guys think that means more dribbles, more shots. But all it means is more deflections, more rebounds, run harder, set better screens. They understand that, but those are the points that we gotta get across. We’ll be fine, it’s a part of it, it’s a part of growth. We have to go through this. We’ll stay together, we’ll continue to grind, and we’ll get back on track.”
