New Orleans Hornets Get Destroyed by Hawks

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Published: January 29, 2012

The New Orleans Hornets came out looking like they were in a daze against the Atlanta Hawks, falling behind 27-6 and never recovering.

Pretty much sums it up

 

The Hornets came out flat against the Hawks and wound up losing 94-72. I believe Jason Smith put it best when he said, “That’s not Hornets basketball. It’s not what the fans deserve. It’s not what the coaches deserve”. I agree, but it’s becoming more and more clear that what the Hornets really deserve is a top pick in next year’s draft. At times they looked atrocious on offense, and maybe worse, apathetic on defense.

It was over when: Sometime around 6:15 CT or so the game simultaneously started and ended. It was quite an unusual occurrence. The Hornets just didn’t show up for the first 11 minutes. They Hawks led 27-6. The Hornets would get back within five, but never closer.

It was really over when: With 7:05 left in the third, Jarrett Jack hit a three to cut the Hawks lead to six. . The Hornets didn’t hit a field goal the rest of the quarter, scoring only six points on free throws, while the Hawks scored 24 of their own. The deficit was 24 after Willie Green knocked home a three pointer to make it 76-52 as the quarter ended.  Henry’s three with 9:30 to go in the fourth was the Hornets first field goal in nine minutes and 30 seconds. Needless to say, it wasn’t enough.

 

Atlanta Hawks 94 Final
Recap | Box Score
72 New Orleans Hornets
Trevor Ariza, SF 29 MIN | 2-6 FG | 5-6 FT | 3 REB | 0 AST | 9 PTS | -23Ariza, like the rest of the team, looked slow tonight. He didn’t really make an impact on the defensive end and offensively he was a bit offensive (in a bad way). It wasn’t a horrible game, but if he’s not playing good defense and contributing something on offense then he’s not going to get a quality grade from me.
Jason Smith, PF 20 MIN | 2-7 FG | 0-0 FT | 3 REB | 0 AST | 4 PTS | -17Smith was active on the glass tonight, but seemed a bit overmatched early on. He was pulled in favor of Landry early in an unsuccessful effort to get the offense rolling by Monty. As usual, he battled hard, but it wasn’t working tonight.
Emeka Okafor, C 31 MIN | 6-10 FG | 1-3 FT | 8 REB | 2 AST | 13 PTS | -19Hit another sweet jumper in the first quarter. He’s gone from awful to automatic in the past year. Now why can’t he make free throws? He was in there for far too many of the easy inside baskets for Atlanta, but relative to most of the team he was god damned fantastic.
Jarrett Jack, PG 30 MIN | 3-9 FG | 2-2 FT | 1 REB | 4 AST | 10 PTS | -25Jack just didn’t have it tonight. He looked a step behind and just didn’t lead the Hornets through their tough start or out of their slump in the third quarter. He was also a liability on defense for much of the night. I have to grade him like the leader of this team, and tonight he struggled terribly in that regard.
Marco Belinelli, SG 12 MIN | 2-6 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 4 PTS | -12Belli had a sweet dunk. Like, really sweet. He also went 1-5 aside from that and played piss-poor defense.
Carldell Johnson, G 5 MIN | 1-3 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 3 AST | 2 PTS | +7Saw some burn in the fourth when the game was out of hand. Had a nice assist to Summers on his first possession, passing up a shot in the process. He had a nice drive shortly after that got him a bucket of his own. Three assists in five minutes is nice enough for me to give him one of the few A’s today.
Carl Landry, PF 14 MIN | 0-4 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 0 AST | 0 PTS | -20Landry came in only four minutes in and Monty obviously thought he would provide some spark to a lifeless offense. He was really wrong. Landry looked as dazed as the rest of the team, and in 13 minutes contributed more fouls and turnover than he did points, rebounds, assists, and blocks combined.
DaJuan Summers, F 13 MIN | 2-5 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 1 AST | 4 PTS | +4He came in early to try to stop the Hornets bleeding, but was unsuccessful in doing so. Had a few nice moments late, but that was in garbage time.
Greivis Vasquez, PG 26 MIN | 3-5 FG | 4-4 FT | 1 REB | 8 AST | 10 PTS | 0Greivis had a number of nice passes (his 8 assists were a career high), but unfortunately that number was too close to how many bad passes and turnovers he had (4). He was also one of the reasons why Atlanta too so many open three pointers. Still, it was an efficient game on offense so I can’t hate too much. He also struggled to get up the court in the fourth quarter when Hinrich pressed him.
Gustavo Ayon, PF 25 MIN | 3-6 FG | 0-0 FT | 7 REB | 2 AST | 6 PTS | +7Was really just outworking his mark on offense, cutting all over the place and losing his main in traffic. He used his now signature fake-up-and-then-go-low-around-his-defender move, which resulted in an easy two. He was one of the lone bright spots tonight, even though his jumper reminded me of Emeka Okafor’s circa 2011.
Al-Farouq Aminu, SF 27 MIN | 2-8 FG | 2-2 FT | 4 REB | 0 AST | 6 PTS | -7Aminu missed the backboard on a layup at one point. What? He got to a few rebounds that I didn’t think he had any business corralling, but overall had a poor game. His defense was off, he had multiple unforced errors/bad turnovers, and he wasn’t efficient on offense.
Xavier Henry, SG 7 MIN | 1-3 FG | 1-2 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 4 PTS | -5Started the fourth and after faking a three from the corner had a nice drive that sent him to the line. He hit a three from that same spot the next time down the floor, which was ended the Hornets field goal drought at right around nine minutes and thirty seconds.

Five Things We Saw

  1. Unlike Wednesday’s game against the Magic, the fans started leaving toward the end of the third quarter.
  2. As Ryan talked about, the Hornets give up a lot of three pointers. It’s hard to win games when the other team shoots over 50 percent from there, but this one can’t be blamed on the ball bouncing the wrong way. Nearly half of the made shots (by my count) were by wide open Hawks.
  3. Attendance was 14,962 meaning the Hornets officially surpassed the requirements to extend their lease. Yay! We win!
  4. Hawks played really good weakside D and did a great job with ball movement on offense, but not as good a job as the Hornets made it out to be.
  5. Someone guard Jeff Teague

Tip Off

Emeka Okafor

Al-Farouq Aminu

Xavier Henry

Xavier Henry guarding former Hornet Willie Green

Jarrett Jack

Jeff Teague

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