Bobcats-Hornets: A Tough Defensive Win

It’s funny what a win can do to your mood. After a tough slate of games in the month of November the Hornets finally get a game that they can “ease” up a bit. Unfortunately (or fortunately which ever way you look at it) New Orleans took no such direction being constantly physical with a Bobcats team that isn’t have the best of seasons.

Most of the game was close, but something seemed like the game was always in hand and it proved to be as New Orleans held their opponents to just 4 successful field goals in the fourth quarter which led them to a 89-73 victory.

Once Marcus Thornton hit his second of two free throws with 8.24 left in the fourth it was all over from there as the Hornets went on an 18-4 run to end the game.

With that head over the jump for a bag of goodies and treats!

Good Stuff

• Although at times it seemed like the Hornets would switch it off defensively for the most part their intensity won this game. Other times against better, playoff caliber teams that intensity won’t be as effective. Against teams like Charlotte it is and hopefully we realize that because we held them to 73 points (11 in the 4th).
• David West had an outstanding game, mostly in the second half. It seems that DW gets his points very quietly because when you watch the game it doesn’t seem like he’s scoring at all really, but there he is plugging away. West finished with 22 points on 15 shots, 6 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists, It’s very nice!
• I’m sorry but before we get to the other players how cool was it to finally see Marcus Thornton out there ballin’! When he regains his confidence he’ll be scary to stop because he really shows his value to the team which is scoring. Lil Buckets scored 7 points on 6 shots and didn’t do much else, but still LIL BUCKETS!

• When your star point guard has 14 assists and you think he had an OK game, slap yourself. So that’s what I just did because we really need to appreciate just how special Chris Paul is. The MVP candidate had 9 points on 7 shots and 14 assists on 3 turnovers. I think tonight he was trying to get his team-mates involved more than anything (Ariza in particular) but I really want to see him attacking the basket more because he could easily score 30 if he wanted to but he just isn’t.
• Emeka Okafor had an amazing game tonight. This is the type of game I want to see from him every night. It seemed like there was a decisive plan to go to him more often and it worked with a high degree of success. Okafor finished with 14 points on 10 shots, 13 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. It’s the type of production you want out of him every night and he needs to build on performances like these.
• Great production out of the bench it was great to see my boy Quincy Pondexter out there getting great minutes. Jason Smith also chipped in with 6 points and a number of offensive rebounds and Willie Green did his usual thing getting 10 points.

Bad Stuff

• I’m not sure what’s up with Trevor Ariza but I feel like I’m saying for the 23rd time that he needs a confidence boost. There have been a variety of instances where Trevor would dribble out of control, take a bad shot, turn it over on an offensive foul or just hesitate on the jumpshot (and miss terribly). He’s not a renowned shooter but it seems with every game he’s getting worse and worse. I’m hoping he can recover from his 4-15 night and come out better against the Knicks.
• Of the 73 points Charlotte scored 34 were in the paint. It seems to me that sometimes a player will chase out a littel to hard or even completely wiff on their matchup and let the easy score go by, we have to correct it.
• Free-Throw shooting continues to drag (64% tonight…)

Other Outrageous Observations

• Tonight’s crowd was downright pitiful, I was so underwhelmed with how few people there were there tonight. Okay sure it’s the Charlotte Bobcats but we have to do a better job of getting people into the arena, for goodness sakes there was only 11,000 there tonight! I know everyone is not going to like me for this but you can understand why some people talk about the team moving and I know some come up with excuses (like that it’s football season). But if folks aren’t going to support a winning team then maybe they shouldn’t be in the city of New Orleans.

Next up is the New York Knicks at home and they are a team that will score on you so it’ll be a nice defensive test. The key to beating them is actually making sure you don’t allow them to get defensive rebounds because it allows them to get out into the open court and run. It’ll be a challenging game, more than people think. And for the love of god can people please get out to the game!

Final Word: Control