Warriors-Hornets: Bench Play And Open Shooters Equates To Loss

The New Orleans Hornets were up by a bunch, the bench then came out in the fourth and left open just about every Warriors shooter, in turn Golden State capitalized making  everything. Trevor Ariza scored 6 points in a row to give the home team a chance but it was to no avail as Willie Green played horrible defense, missed a three pointer and did just about everything else wrong. Add in the fact that the Hornets turned the ball over a tonne, missed a lot of free-throws, couldn’t score when they needed to and you have a 110-101 loss.

In my view this is the fault of the coach and the bench. When the fourth started rather than going with a big, punishing lineup, we went with a small ball lineup that led to numerous open jumpers and a faster paced offense. How you don’t punish a team like this is beyond me. You know where their strengths are yet you let them play the way they want to.

Assistant head coach Mike Malone said at halftime that, “We have to force them to play a half-court game and slow them down.” Yet instead of punishing them, we let them run all day long.

It seemed like the Hornets did everything wrong in this one and it’s very true. This team continues to fascinate me with their inconsistency, we have the Lakers coming up so you know we need this win. Instead we flunk at home.

Ugh this is a face-palm game…these guys just don’t possess the qualities of a playoff team…

No grades tonight they all get F’s, well they probably shouldn’t but it’s just a let-down that I don’t think all deserve to be mentioned. Instead I’ll run you through some dot-points.

• Willie Green should not be on the floor in the fourth quarter. I don’t care what he brings in terms of leadership, he can’t shoot beyond 17 feet, his defense is as good as his 3 point shot, sporadic. Chris Paul deserves some of the blame for the last 2 minutes, he passed numerous times to Green and Ariza who can’t shoot from three instead of working it himself or to David West.
• Anyone else think we need more three-point shooters? It seems that Paul is surrounded with guys who can’t shoot. Take the last three minutes of the game, here’s the lineup. Paul-Belinelli-Green-Ariza-West, Only one three point shooter for CP3, that isn’t going to get you the win, ever.
• So many missed free-throws tonight. This team will lose games like this because they can’t convert at the line. It’s not like it’s Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza missing FT’s (we expect them to) it’s guys like West and even Paul (4 missed tonight) that is jeopardising the team.
• So many turnovers. This team could not hold on to the ball at all, 18 in total. In addition we only forced the Warriors to 8. This is particularly concerning because usually the Hornets hold on to the ball at a nice rate.
• The game seemed a win at 3 quarter time, then the bench came on and gave the Warriors the ball game. No literally they did. They went out there, said to them “Hey look we aren’t really interested, here, you have it” and went on their way. This bench continues to lack that punishing player that goes out and asserts himself at every opportunity. They all are waiting for someone else to make a play, when in actual fact they should all be bitting at the heel to contribute. No winners on the second-unit.
• Doesn’t really help the team when Emeka Okafor fouls out with 5 mintues to go.
• Officiating was pretty bad tonight. They gave a lot of “soft” calls to the Warriors. In addition where is that travel on David Lee when Okafor fouled out?

I can’t even go on describing what a terrible loss this is. If it were to a good team I might think other wise, but the Hornets know what the Warriors do, yet they let them have their way in terms of pace. Next up is the Lakers at the Staples Center, prepare for a humiliating defeat…

Final Word: Ugh-ness

An example of a David Lee travel…