Hornets Hang On and Beat the Bobcats 90-87

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Published: October 11, 2012

It wasn’t always pretty but the Hornets hung on and beat the Bobcats in a game almost no one saw on TV.

The Hornets came out firing and seemed poised to repeat their performance from Tuesday night by racing out to an 18 point lead. They then blew that lead before regaining it and holding on to win the game. The Bobcats actually hit a 3-pointer to tie the game, but the shot came just after the final buzzer. If this were the regular season this would have been a terrifying game since the Bobcats are just awful. But it’s preseason so let’s take this game for what it’s worth.

The game wasn’t televised which makes recapping the game based off the audio feed much tougher. I was hoping to see (hear?) more of the Hornets’ off ball movement on offense. But that wasn’t really touched on during the game. I also have no idea if the Hornets played a zone defense at all. But still, there were a handful of things to take away from the game. Let’s do this…

-Robin Lopez finished with a respectable stat line, but he seemed to struggle for stretches. Defensively, he finished with 4 fouls. I’ll live with it since most of those fouls occurred while contesting easy Bobcats shots. Monty might not like the fouls but he’ll be okay not giving up uncontested dunks/shots.

-The Hornets shooting was pretty poor overall–at one point it dipped as low as 32.6%–but that was more due to bad luck. Multiple 3-point attempts rimmed out. As the bad luck started to turn around the shots started falling and the Hornets got themselves back into the game.

-I have no idea how Lance Thomas played. But he did have 14 points on 7 shots. I’m not exactly the biggest backer of Thomas, but performances like tonight (if he indeed did play like the box score states) will change my mind. Did I say I’m not a fan of listening to the game on the radio?

-Anthony Davis! You can just tell he is a franchise changer. He put up a fantastic 12/8/1 line at halftime. More so than the numbers, he was constantly involved in the game on both sides of the ball. He was going up for every rebound and running all over the place on offense.

He also showed off his ball handling skills by facing up and taking his defender on off the dribble. Most big men are going to have trouble defending that. I dig it.

-The Bobcats pressed the Hornets’ offense in the second quarter and the Hornets struggled to respond. This could be a huge concern for the Hornets. Because they already run such a slow paced offense that possessions are vital. But I’m not getting too worked up until I see this happen in person or on TV.

-Monty decided to give the start to Brian Roberts and it paid off. Though he had quiet stretches at times, Roberts ran the offense well. He was also one of the few bright spots on offense going 6 of 7 from the field.

-Aminu sounded like he had a so-so game. What encourages me is his effort levels has increased. There was a play where the Hornets inbounded the ball and it was quickly stolen by the Bobcats. Aminu chased down the ball handler and got a block from behind to deny the easy score. Aminu will remain maddening as long as he keeps showing flashes of potential.

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