Cliff Notes: Paint Battles, Injury News, Respect for Mazzulla + More

Charlotte Hornets head coach Steve Clifford met with the media following today's practice.

Final preseason practice

"We played a lot today. Good energy, good intensity. As you go forward and guys are starting to get their rhythm more and everything like that and obviously you have to add stuff too as you go along."

Winning in the paint

"Some teams are great at protecting the paint because they have [Rudy] Gobert or they have [Joel] Embiid. They can do a big chunk of that all by themselves. We have two centers who are very solid rim protectors. Other teams like OKC, they do a great job by...they just help more. It's really personnel-driven. Offensively, it's the same thing. Getting in the paint last year was actually a big strength of our team. It was just the efficiency part once we get in there."

Injury updates

"Gordon [Hayward] was good today. He did everything today, he scrimmaged and everything. Hopefully, he'll feel good tomorrow. Theo [Maldeon] scrimmaged today -- we'll see how he feels. Leaky [Black] was able to do more today, so we had more guys today that we were able to scrimmage."

The job Joe Mazzulla has done in Boston

"They have a great team, obviously, right? But that's not easy when you come in and you take over a roster where they had gone to the Finals the year before. Plus then they added to that. Every coaching job has different challenges but he did a really good job. They're as good as anybody in the league."

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