Hornets Blown Out by Thunder…

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Published: November 16, 2012

Well, that was fun. Let’s avoid the negatives for now. There’s plenty of time for that later. We won the 2nd half! And Davis quite literally rebounded from Wednesday’s poor effort on the glass, with 11 boards, including 5 offensive. And Ryan Anderson was a perfect 3-3 from deep, so that’s nice. And, uh…

Yeah. Some observations:

  • The Hornets inverted their usual modus operandi, having only one successful and three losing ones (let’s not pretend we “won” the 4th, going against a lineup of Thabeet/Jones/Jackson/Lamb/Liggins).
  • Ibaka asserted his rim protecting dominance early, gathering all three of his blocks in the 1st quarter; Davis and Rivers both managed to score a bucket over him, but on the whole he intimidated most drives from going all the way to the rim
  • Davis was usually matched up against Ibaka, and his frailty was painfully obvious; he struggled to get his usual “hustle” looks around the rim, and his jumpshot was not there tonight. At one point, Kevin Martin rotated on him in the post and Davis didn’t attempt to back him down; that must (and will) change.
  • Greivis Vasquez was surprisingly effective defending Russell Westbrook, but since no one thought it might be a good idea to guard Durant, he was able to rack up a season high 12 assists.
  • Kevin Durant is good at basketball
  • So is Kevin Martin; he scored 27 total, including 22 in his first ten minutes played. Rotations weren’t particularly good, but he still managed to hit quite a few fairly contested jumpers. Unlike Harden’s ball-handling dissection of the Hornets on Wednesday, Martin killed them from spot up shooting. He’s certainly adds a dynamic scoring element off the bench for the Thunder that, while not similar in style to Harden, is so far similar in productivity and efficiency.
  • Austin Rivers was 4-8 from the field, and 1-2 from deep; his shooting woes seem to be slowly falling away, although he decided it had been too long since he last sprained an ankle, and came up limping in the 2nd half. He managed to return later in the game.
  • The Thunder turned the ball over 13 times, but the Hornets only managed 8 fast break points. Vasquez looked particularly slow tonight in transition. Coupled with their inability to create in the half-court, and this game was over by halftime. Eric Gordon, where art thou?

The Hornets face off against the Bucks tomorrow night in Milwaukee.

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