Lakers’ Byron Scott: Don’t play defense, get benched

The Los Angeles Lakers hired Byron Scott as their head coach and he addressed the media at his first press conference on Tuesday.

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While Scott is familiar with the “Showtime Lakers” and the high-powered offense of the 80s, he won’t be employing that kind of offense.

“We can’t play that way. We don’t have a Magic Johnson. So we can’t get up and down the floor, a guy pushing the ball like he pushes right now,” Scott said, via the Los Angeles Times. “But my style is still the same. Like I said, first of all defense, we got to do that on a night-to-night basis. Offensively we want to get up and down the floor. We want to spread the floor. Don’t want it sticking, as much as possible. And we want to put our players in a position to be successful.”

And if players don’t play defense, they’ll be benched.

“They don’t do it I’ll take them out the game,” Scott said. “It’s pretty simple, Jim. I mean, again, you get beat on the defensive end, and I’ve done this my whole career, guys, they understand that you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do out there, there’s consequences.

“And the only thing that you can really control with players is their minutes. That gets their attention. So if you’re not out there and you’re not playing defense the way I think you’re capable of playing or the way we should play defense, then I’m going to have to find other guys that will.”