LITTLE IN RESERVE

The message was stark, but for the most part, all Hornets Coach Byron Scott saw as the halftime numbers screamed back at his players was a roomful of bewildered stares.

"Their defense was a little bit more aggressive when our starters went out of the game," Scott said of Wednesday night's season-opening loss to the San Antonio Spurs. "And our bench guys seemed to be a little bit more passive. Then it kind of trickled down to the defensive end, as well.

"So putting '30-0' on the board at halftime and asking them, 'Do you understand what this means?' . . ."

Only reserve guard Devin Brown, who didn't play in the first half, knew the numerals' significance. The Spurs' bench had scored 30 first-half points. The Hornets' reserves had none. New Orleans trailed 57-39 at halftime.

"He knew what it meant," Scott said Thursday. "He said, 'I think that's the bench scoring.' I said, 'Exactly. That's the reason we're losing this game right now, because you guys haven't done the things you're supposed to. You either have got to score, or you've got to stop them. One of the two. You can't not score and let them score each and every time. That's what they've got.' "

To rectify the disparity in points from reserves (the Spurs ultimately held a 61-19 edge), during Thursday's practice at the Alario Center, the last full workout leading up to tonight's regular-season home opener at the New Orleans Arena against the Sacramento Kings, some Hornets such as guard Bobby Brown spent extra time working on outside shooting.

It was Brown's 21-foot jumper with 3:11 to go in the third quarter of the Spurs' 113-96 victory that provided New Orleans' reserves with their first points of the game, a stretch in which the Spurs had built their biggest advantage of 25 points.

"That was surprising," Brown said of the collar the bench wore in the first half. "I didn't know it was 30-0 in bench points. We're definitely going to have to step it up on Friday night, with our bench coming in there and keeping the lead or maintaining it and taking it to another level."

Brown led all New Orleans reserves with nine points on 4-of-12 shooting in 23 minutes.

Yet the paucity of the bench's contributions, an area in which the Hornets took offseason steps to improve (acquisition of Bobby Brown and moving Peja Stojakovic to a reserve role, among others) was as much a result of the Hornets' tepid shooting touch (7-of-21) as it was San Antonio's customary lock-down defensive play.

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