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NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 17, 2008

Byron Scott

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach.

Q. What is your stance on how you intend to use Kobe given the splint on his hand?
BYRON SCOTT: Very, very simple: Kobe and I have talked about it. We talked yesterday, he wants to start, but I was given the orders as well to play him as little as possible. So our discussions basically came down to him playing the first three or four minutes of the game, and then basically getting him out for the entire rest of the first half and the entire second half.
Obviously, our interest is in Kobe making sure when this game is over, that he's still relatively healthy. We know the extent of the injury, so we want to make sure it doesn't get hurt any more than it already is.

Q. Orders from who?
BYRON SCOTT: Well, I talked to Stu, Stu Jackson about it. And he told me, basically, it's up to Kobe. So my next conversation is to sit down with Kobe, and we talked about it. Again, so we've got an agreement to make sure that he plays very little, and then get him out of there as soon as possible.

Q. Can you talk about Carmelo Anthony being an All-Star. Is he the kind of guy that just fits into an All-Star team?
BYRON SCOTT: You see him more than I do. You're in Denver, so you get a chance to see him on an everyday basis.
But he's an All-Star. He's a prolific scorer in this league. Carmelo's developed every season. He's gotten better and better. So there's no doubt in my mind that this is the type of game that fits his style perfectly. Like I said, there's no strategy, basically. You just go out there and have fun, and play as hard as you can. At the end of the day we want to make sure everybody's healthy to go back and participate with their team in the second half.

Q. You being an old-school guy, to what extent in your day would opposing players, not obviously on an All-Star Game, but to what extent would they attack a guy's injury? And to what extent do they do it now?
BYRON SCOTT: I don't think they do it now. In our day they would have done it every game until he couldn't probably play. Especially if you have an injury like Kobe has, where you have to wear some type of protection; guys would take shots at that all the time. But it's a different league now. I don't think it's as physical or as rough, which is probably a good thing as well.
Like I told Kobe, I just want to make sure he's healthy as he can be for the second half of the season. He's very excited, obviously, about the second half of the season, and we'll just wait and see what happens.

Q. Just your thoughts on last night, the Slam Dunk with Dwight and Gerald and just how impressed you were with the stuff they were doing?
BYRON SCOTT: I was very impressed with Dwight. You know, you see a lot of 6'11" guys, 260 pounds, but you don't see them as athletic as he is, or have the jumping ability that he has. So the dunks that he did last night, I thought I would never see some of those dunks that I saw Vince Carter do years back. But I thought Dwight with his size and strength and his athleticism, being 6' 11", you just don't see guys that tall and that big having that type of athleticism in the Dunk Contest. So I was kind of blown away at what he was able to accomplish.

Q. I know during the regular season you talk a lot about defense, is that going to be something you focus on at all tonight? Will it be painful for you to see some of the defense?
BYRON SCOTT: No, it's the All-Star Game, so that will be the last thing I would talk about probably today is defense. Just like I was telling CP a little while ago. He was talking about how nervous he was, and Brandon Roy, and I told them, hey, just go out there and have fun and enjoy yourself. That's the last thing I'm going to talk about is defense today. I'll get back into my defensive mode tomorrow night.

Q. To people haven't seen your team play a lot this year and everything, what are the odds we're back in this room in June?
BYRON SCOTT: I don't know, but that's a good question. You know, to be honest with you, I wouldn't be very disappointed if I see Doc again in June. But I think we feel pretty good about the way we played so far. Obviously, we haven't made any move like a few teams around us have. But we feel we have a very good basketball team. When it's all said and done, we feel we're going to have something to do with it.
So I know there are not a lot of people giving us a lot of chances to be in the NBA Finals, but we're just going to keep playing the way we've been playing, and see if we can start back on Wednesday night.

Q. It has been a tradition in All-Star Games of sorts informally to have a member of the All-Star team win MVP awards, particularly in the '80s. Do you see your team trying to do that on some level with Chris Paul? And how do you feel about that in your particular role putting him out there and perhaps playing him that many minutes to do that?
BYRON SCOTT: Like I said, my main thing is trying to keep everybody happy. Trying to let these guys get a number amount of minutes that everybody can be satisfied with. You've got a few guys out here that they wouldn't mind playing 10 or 15 minutes, and you have other guys that wouldn't mind playing more. So just trying to keep everybody happy is the number one goal.
The No. 2 goal is for those guys, as they will when the game gets close in the fourth quarter, the competitive nature that they have will come out and they'll try to win the game.
As far as CP or David trying to get MVP awards, that kind of goes to the players that are out there on the floor. And a lot of times they recognize that they would like the hometown kids to get a chance to do that.
Hopefully, the stars will line up right for us tonight, and we'll see what happens.

Q. A lot has been made about all the community service that the players have put in this week and over the time. Can you just talk about that from a standpoint of it is spotlighted this week, but it's been an ongoing process for a long time here.
BYRON SCOTT: Again, the NBA and David Stern have done a terrific job as far as the NBA Cares program and getting the NBA involved. A lot of the players have been behind the scenes for a long time. I think because of this weekend it's been more spotlighted because of All-Star Weekend. But this has been going on for a while. The players have been very, very involved. I thought this weekend has been terrific because you get to see them on a different level away from basketball. And again, it really shows how much the NBA does care about the city of New Orleans.
So hopefully when this is all said and done, like we said before, shines that spotlight on the city, and it lets people around the world and around the nation know that we're still trying to recover. We still have a long ways to go, and we still need your support.

Q. Just wanted to see if you could talk about the significance that this is the second time we've had two black head coaches in this game?
BYRON SCOTT: When was the first time?

Q. '86, I believe.
BYRON SCOTT: Who was it?

Q. K.C. Jones and someone.
BYRON SCOTT: I'm sorry, I'm not a reporter, I'm just trying to figure it out myself.
You know, I think it's fantastic to be honest with you. Especially with what Doc has went through the last year in Boston, to get that team back up there. Obviously, the first year I was here we won 18 games and now we're at 36-15. But you know, to me it shines the light on just two very good basketball coaches. It's not so much about our race, it's more about what we've done in our professions. So I think that should be more of what it's all about than the color of our skin.
But I think Doc has done a terrific job. We've got something going pretty good here in New Orleans. Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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