Anthony Davis: 'We can't be labeled as a soft team'
The Pelicans are off to an 0-3 start to the season, but even before Stephen Curry torched them for 53 points, Anthony Davis was concerned about his team getting a bad reputation.
New Orleans is battling injuries at the moment -- Tyreke Evans and Norris Cole are both out, Omer Asik is just getting back into the lineup, and Jrue Holiday is on a minutes restriction. Add all of that to a new head coach in Alvin Gentry attempting to install a new system, and it'll be a while before the Pelicans are defending as expected.
Davis, however, just wants to make sure the effort is there until everything else comes together as planned.
''We can't be labeled as a soft team,'' Davis said after Saturday's shootaround. ''We got to be more tenacious. I think the fourth quarter in Portland showed how we can play defensively and that's how we got to play from the beginning.
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''We got to be a defensive team that's scrappy and dives on the floor, play with a lot of contact, playing physical. We got to get back to that. As soon as the ball goes in the air, we got to start putting our body on people. That's sets the tone for the game. We got to come out the gates physical.''
