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Warriors top Hornets; Nelson gets 1,200th career win

Dec 10, 2006 - 5:59 AM OAKLAND, California (Ticker) -- While Byron Scott is upset with his team's effort, Baron Davis helped Don Nelson reach a milestone.

Davis collected 16 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists and Andris Biedrins had 17 points and 13 rebounds as the Golden State Warriors held Chris Paul in check and snapped a four-game losing streak with a 101-80 victory over the struggling New Orleans Hornets.

Mickael Pietrus scored 22 points for the Warriors, who shot 49 percent (41-of-83) from the field and dished out 29 assists to give Nelson his 1,200th career win.

Many Golden State players attributed Saturday's stellar play to a mini-training camp Nelson has run recently to end the four-game skid.

"I think it helped a lot," Biedrins said. "We stopped doing those things that we did in the beginning of the season when we were winning the games and we just needed to get back to those little things. In that mini-camp, we basically started to do the same things we were doing in training camp before the season and it really helped."

After an impressive win at the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday, the Hornets have suffered blowout losses on back-to-back nights. Coach Scott went on a mini-tirade after Friday's loss at Seattle, calling out his team for lack of consistent effort.

"(Saturday was) a better effort. We just can't make shots," Hornets coach Byron Scott said. "Guys are getting wide-open shots and missing. On the other end, we're contesting shots and they're making them so right now if you look at our team, we're not a very good basketball team."

"It was a very disappointing road trip, especially to get a win at LA and then to lose two in a row," Paul said. "We felt that after we were victorious in LA that we had great momentum going into the next two games and obviously we didn't."

Golden State had been going through its own struggles but put together an impressive victory Saturday to help Nelson join all-time leader Lenny Wilkens as the only two coaches to reach that mark.

"It was good to finally get that 1,200th win but it is just another game for me," Nelson said. "It was just good to get it out of the way. It just means that I have been around for a while."

"We've been trying to get it for the past four ballgames, the last two home games before that (road trip)," Davis said. "So it was good, I'm happy that I'm a part of that, his legacy."

A former Hornet, Davis entered the paint at will, shooting 7-of-15 from the floor.

"We've just got to push, we've just got to keep pushing, keep fighting and we're going to start hitting some shots," Davis said. "We're going to start getting some steals, get our hands on some balls, especially knowing they had played (Friday) so we had a little bit of that to our advantage as well."

After collecting 34 points and 10 assists in his last contest against Golden State, Paul scored just 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting as Golden State used an effective zone defense to keep him out of the paint.

"The key for us was to stop Paul, and to do that we used a 3-2 zone for most of the game in order to keep Paul out of the middle and to suppress their pick-and-roll," Nelson said.

"In the second half, I think we did a really great job on defense and that was the main thing," Biedrins said. "That's how we won this game."

Desmond Mason had 24 points and eight boards and Jannero Pargo collected 15 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists for the Hornets, who shot 43 percent (30-of-70).

"We played hard," Mason said. "The energy and the effort was there. A couple of things didn't go our way. They got the momentum, and on the road you can't let that happen."