Byron Scott Last Quotations

I expect both those guys to get opportunities and contribute to the team. And both those guys have shown improvement from last year to this year.

The people have been incredible, ... I walked into a place last night, and the person said, 'You guys are like movie stars. We don't know how to act.' I said, 'No, we're just normal people. We just want to be wanted.'

Just the fact that all of those guys had a chance to be here for a few days and get around the city and see some of the devastation that Katrina left made them feel a little guilty. I think the guys felt a little guilty after the last game that they had to come in and give a better effort.

I thought we came out better than we have the last five or six games. It just seems like in the last two or three minutes of each quarter, they hurt us. The Spurs are a championship team and they can really buckle down on you defensively during those stretches. The one thing I want more than anything right now is to compete and I felt like we did that tonight.

We played a lot better than we have in the last five or six games. The one thing that I wanted us to do was compete, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that.

Offensively, we've been fine. We're running the floor and our fast break was fine. (Thursday), our defense got better. Some of the things we've been doing the last couple of nights showed up.

After we drafted Chris Paul, it became obvious that Dan would look to sign elsewhere in order to have a chance to compete for a starting point guard job, ... Making this trade gives Dan that chance, which he earned by what he did for us last season, and it also prevents us from losing him without compensation. We wish him the best of luck in Boston.

It's not an achievement, it's what we expected. We've gotten to .500; now the key is to keep going. There are a lot of young guys that didn't experience the terrible season we had last year; the 19 wins is a nice accomplishment, but were looking to do bigger things this season.

It seemed like every quarter, the last to or three minutes is what cost us. That team is a championship team. They seemed to buckle down at that time and get stops. And they get buckets on the other end.

I told them ... 'They remember the last time they played us and they're going to try to destroy us'. I don't think they believed me, but now I think they understand exactly what I was trying to say.