After watching the film and studying his new team, Stan Van Gundy identified one of the biggest enemies of the New Orleans Pelicans from last season: the Pelicans themselves. Whether it was committing costly turnovers, being whistled for too many fouls or other unforced errors, New Orleans often hurt its chances of winning with self-inflicted wounds. A team that has plenty of young talent and offensive firepower did many of the “little things” poorly, a major factor behind a 13-28 record in clutch games, the NBA’s second-worst winning percentage (31.7) in that stat.
As a result, prior to leading his first training camp in New Orleans, Van Gundy delivered a simple, overarching message to Pelicans players.
“I sent them a text that said, ‘The first step is we’ve got to get to where we don’t beat ourselves,’ ” Van Gundy recalled.
In just his third regular season game at the helm Sunday, Van Gundy’s missive appeared to pay dividends. New Orleans played a subpar offensive game, shooting just 38 percent from the field, but still defeated San Antonio by checking off an array of items on the don’t-beat-yourself list.
The Pelicans (2-1) entered Sunday’s NBA action ranked last in the league in turnover percentage, but committed only eight vs. the Spurs (2-1), while holding San Antonio to just eight free throw attempts. New Orleans opened the Southwest Division matchup with an unsightly 16-point first quarter and only managed 19 points in the fourth period, yet prevailed when Eric Bledsoe blocked DeMar DeRozan’s potential game-tying three-point attempt. It may not have been pretty, but the manner in which New Orleans won sounded beautiful to Van Gundy when he detailed it.
“I told the (players) afterwards, it sounds crazy but as a coach, these are my favorite kinds of wins,” the 13th-year NBA head coach said. “Not that I want to shoot like that every night, but to shoot 38 percent, and 20 percent from three, and be able to get a win against a good team, to me is a great way to win. Because every team in this league can beat any team on their best night. The good teams have to be able to win on less than their best night. And we did it by doing the things we’ve been talking about since Day 1. Finally, we took care of the ball (after totaling 40-plus turnovers vs. Toronto and Miami). We get 12 offensive rebounds to (San Antonio’s) four. We get 28 free throws to their eight.”
Pelicans reserve wing Josh Hart personified Sunday’s gritty effort, scrapping his way to 12 points and 10 rebounds in 33 minutes. New Orleans finished with 11 steals, led by five apiece from Zion Williamson (career high) and Lonzo Ball. At the other end, Williamson shot just 7/22 and New Orleans subs combined to go just 6/17, but that was still enough to edge previously unbeaten San Antonio.
“That’s a great win for us, because at the end of the day, you can’t control whether you’re making shots,” Hart said. “All you can control is your effort, your habits, your attention to detail. We were able to do that and Stan did a great job in training camp and since then helping us with habits, taking care of the ball. If we can get wins like this, it’s a special group. Hopefully we don’t shoot this bad again. But if we do, we have the habits and attention to detail to still pull out the W.”
“If you know Stan, he loves that,” Williamson said, referring to withstanding offensive woes and winning. “Because it shows we’re making improvements as a team, when shots aren’t falling the way we want them to. We’re building a winning culture. If one thing’s not working, that doesn’t mean we stop doing everything else. We’ve still got to have other parts of the game to keep working at. If we want to be a great team, we’ve got to be great even when nights aren’t going well for us.”
All-Star forward Brandon Ingram led New Orleans in scoring with 28 points, but even he didn’t have the most efficient shooting performance, finishing 9/23. Yet Ingram blocked a shot, grabbed 11 rebounds and handed out six assists.
“(The win was) very meaningful, because we didn’t have a good shooting night,” Ingram said. “We did other things well, and that showed. Guys did their jobs on the defensive end, we got stops and ran. The percentage wasn’t good on offense, but we did what it took to win. That’s the most important thing.”