Griffin/Paul Duo Too Much for the Hornets to Overcome

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Published: March 27, 2012

Turnovers kill the Hornets as Clippers roll in the second half.

From the beginning, it was easy to tell that the Clippers were into this game and it was going to be a long night for the short handed Hornets. LA came out with an 18-2 run to start the game and took advantage of mistake after mistake for the Hornets. The Hornets finished the game with more turnovers than assists (27-23) for only the second time this season, and were simply out-played and out-hustled by a team that simply wanted it more.

In the last meeting against LA, the Hornets had a tough time holding onto the ball as well, but they made up for the turnovers with deadly shooting in all three phases (FG, FT, 3Pt). In this game , however, the three was not falling and when they did get to the line, they didn’t take advantage (21-31). But even if they had more success from the field and at the line, it would have been hard to beat the Clippers on this night. Paul and Griffin were determined to come out of this game with a victory after what happened Thursday night, and the Hornets simply don’t have the talent to overcome those two when they are on the games.

Notes and Observations:

– Thanks a lot Rodney Stuckey! With his buzzer beater tonight over the Wizards, he simultaneously hurt our lotto chances and helped Portland in their quest to get a top 5 pick and make the Gerald Wallace trade one of the worst in NBA history. I don’t forgive easily Mr. Stuckey.

– In the two meetings against the Clippers, the Hornets are averaging just 60.5 FGA per game, which is almost 20 shots per game less than their season average. Yes, their FT attempts are up by 10, but that is the equivalent of 5 FGA, so it is still a huge difference that is a combination of the pace of the game between these two teams and the Hornets willingness to just give the ball away. The Hornets have shown that they can get just about any shot they want against the Clippers, but they have to keep the ball in order to get those shots.

– The Blake Griffin foul on Trevor was excessive and more dangerous than the Smitty foul, but it wasn’t retaliation. If the Blake/Smitty incident never would have occurred, and this same situation would have unfolded, Blake would have done the exact same thing. It will get more play because of what happened on Thursday, but it was simply a good, hard, clean foul.

– I know that Aminu scored the majority of his points in garbage time, but I don’t care. I am looking for any reason to believe that he can develop into somebody worthy of a lottery pick and his jumper tonight gave me at least a glimmer of hope. But why can’t he put both facets of his game together? It seems like when he is scoring, he is not rebounding and (more often) when he grabs a large number of rebounds, he is not scoring.

– Belinelli disappointed me with his 1 turnover. If not for that mistake, he would have had such a clean box score. Goose eggs in rebounds, assists, blocks, steals, and fouls. But that 1 turnover!!

– Going into the season, the plan was to root for the Hornets all year until the playoffs hit and then root for the Clippers and CP3 once the Hornets were eliminated, but the Clippers are just so hard to root for. The team is full of cry babies, whiners, and generally unlikeable people. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.

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