Notes following the Jazz's shootaround Monday morning at EnergySolutions Arena.
Coach Tyrone Corbin on New Orleans: They've shown signs of being where they were last year. They push the ball up the floor really well. With Okafor and Kaman now they do a great job of rebounding the ball, especially on the offensive end of the floor. They're a capable shooting team, although they struggled shooting 3-pointers [Sunday] night [at Sacramento]. That's the thing: they're going to take a lot of them, so you've got to make sure you get out to the shooters and not let them hurt you going inside-out, especially with Okafor in the post and then going to Kaman some. Landry's a capable scorer down there, so they will go inside. But the inside-outside combination of kicking the ball out and be able to recover to the shooters will be key for us.
Deeper team without Chris Paul: You know what? I'm so inundated on what we have, I can't critique anybody else's team, other than what we need to do to have a chance to beat them. They made the changes they've made for whatever reason they've made them and that's where they are.
What Hornets coach Monty Williams is dealing with: It's the league, man. You've got to just be ready to go with what you have and you've got to try to get your guys on the same page as soon as you can. This is difficult times because guys have different ideas about what they should be doing individually and how they should be able to play individually. And it's not just about that; it's about putting a team together to get a chance to win. And in some cases you've got to ask guys to sacrifice some of their talents to give a team a chance to win. And it's a difficult balance and you just have to keep working on it until you get a win.
Brian T. Smith
Twitter: @tribjazz
