The New Orleans Hornets fall to 5-14, 1-3 on the week, after a 16 point loss to Miami after being outscored by 18 in the second quarter.
The Hornets managed to keep the Heat from taking advantage of poor three point defense, but the Hornets also failed to take advantage of the same weakness of the Heat. This was in part due to Anderson having to sit for most of the second quarter due to foul trouble after missing half of the first quarter for the same reason. The forward was the Hornets’ leading scorer (24) in just 30 minutes of action, matching the output of LeBron James and falling two shy of Dwyane Wade’s game leading output.
No Hornets guard got into double figures, and Lopez’s 20 points could not help overcome the difference in output by the wings. Still, the Hornets did manage their small victory, not inviting a beating from behind the arc for the second time in as many nights.
Still, the team is so thin and the skills are so concentrated (e.g. Anderson has taken over 40% of the team’s three point attempts.), that someone being actually or figuratively removed from the game while Gordon and Davis sit is irrecoverable, and the second quarter performance is evidence of this. Tonight, Anderson’s actual absence broke the Hornets.
Beyond this, turnovers were an issue. Though the Hornets committed only three more turnovers than the Heat, the Heat scored 22 of the 19 Hornets turnovers while the Hornets scored only 9 points of the 16 chances the took from the Heat. This disparity is also reflected in the 3-14 difference in fast break points.
Grayson called this by 19; close. He also called Lopez having a better game than Bosh. Another solid prediction.
23 responses to “Hornets Lose to Heat by 16 After Poor Second Quarter”
Instead of worrying about this ridiculous thing of Pelicans, the Hornets’ front office should take care of what really matters: to build a basketball team that has a minimal decency, but what we see on the court is the opposite. A lot of bad players that only bring us shame every night. We built a terrible team and… what is the biggest concern? Rebrand? Pelican? Seriously? It’s almost unbelievable! While we sit there thinking about the future, future, future… teams were worse that ours, as Pacers, Sixers, Grizzlies, Warriors… already left us behind! And now until the Bobcats built a team more decent than ours. But our chiefs are concerned about the Pelican… Can you believe it? It’s very amateurish!
Tonight we lost to Heat… What will be the next lucky team? Let’s see… Washington Wizards! That’s all so sad…
This has been stated before-
We’re not ready to compete for a championship yet, so why rush it?
I think if you’re going to be bad, be as bad as you can for a draft pick (esp. if you’re the Hornicans).
Championship? I’m not talking about win a championship… I’m talking about DECENCY. By putting a terrible team like that inside the court every night, the New Orleans’ franchise doesn’t show any respect for the fans who pay tickets and not even the NBA. It’s a shame. The current Hornets’ team lose to teams of my country (Brazil) and also others (Argentina, Europe…).
Dell Demps isn’t Mr. Miyagi, so I’m not sure what you want him to do when 2 of his top 3 players get hurt. Try being patient
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzO7Eo0xeQ0
I approve this message.
It seems you have said more about the Pelicans in this comment than the team has to this point.
Different franchise employees handle these aspects of the business, as well.
The recent car accident with the Cowboys has me wondering what the team will do with Bobby Phills’ jersey after the rebrand.
I bet they take it down, honestly. Maybe they work something out with Charlotte in advance.
Phills is from BR, so maybe they’ll keep it. They have the Pete banner. He played in New Orleans (and LSU), but not as part of this franchise.
Jordan’s jersey is in Miami, so it’s not unprecedented to have another team’s jersey in your arena.
I think they should retire more Louisiana players’ jerseys in the Arena, frankly.
Mr. Miyagi? The Hornets’ Mr. Miyagi traded Thornton for Landry and ran out of both. He closed the CP3′ trade with the Lakers that would leave the franchise (no owner) in debt for the rest of life (thank you, Mr. Stern!), ensured a happy retirement ($$$) to Mr. Gordon and let go Kaman to bring the pathetic Robin Lopez. And now he has built this horrible team that fills us with shame. Actually I see that our GM is far from a Mr. Miyagi. Maybe he looks more like Disney’s Goofy…
He also got Jason Smith/Willie Green for nothing, just signed Ryan Anderson to the best deal in the league, and got your favorite player for Pondexter. Also signed Goose and Roberts for nothing. Dumped Okafor and Ariza’s bad contracts.
Bad: Gordon is more likely at this point to become a regret, so I agree that signing/trading him would’ve been right move. We’ll see. As far as Lakers trade is concerned, I still would like to know whether it was Lakers leaking news to push it through or an actual agreement.
Unfortunately, I agree. The Pelicans rebrand may well be an attempt to take attention away from the poor product on the court.
Yes, we have players injured, but that’s partly the result of our own front office’s dubious decision to sign players with injury histories (or in the case of Davis, rolling the dice of a player with little history at all). We’re also not the only team which is dealing with injuries.
During Charlotte’s horrible season last year, I recall remarking that they are probably actually further down their rebuild than we are with ours. Despite Charlotte’s bad recent skid, unfortunately, this looks to be increasingly true.
I came away from this game feeling strangely positive. I feel like our Hornets(Pelicans) could be the Heat’s weakness even without Eric Gordon as long as we have Anthony Davis. Our bigmen will be too much for them. Also, my phrase for the Pelicans will be “DEM PELICANS!” and after reading that Deadspin article I’m all in on the name. Besides, Michael is right, the team’s performance makes the name and we should be one of the more dominant teams in a few years. Geaux Hornet… for now.
“The Hornets managed to keep the Heat from taking advantage of poor three point defense”..
I’m not sure I would call allowing 7 for 11 on 3s as keeping the Heat from taking advantage of poor three point defense. The Heat shot a ridiculous 58% overall, so there seemed no real need to jack up the 3s since plenty of other things were working. But when they did jack them up, the 3s almost always went in.
This comes after we allowed 47% on 3s against the Grizz.
If anything, our 3-point defense seems to be getting worse.
I think you lack context of what “poor” and “taking advantage” are here.
The Hornets entered the game giving up over 23 attempts per game with the bad guys hitting them at 41%. They gave up 11 attempts to the Heat for 7 makes. 9 or 10 is the expected number.
In the Grizzlies game, the attempts were the Grizzlies average.
You can pick on the percentage, but with small samples, the numbers change pretty dramatically after `the next shot’, like 5%. The damage done was less than what is normally done to the Hornets, which is over 9 per game, and a team that shoots the 3 like the Heat, second best in the NBA and using at least 4 players who hit the three at over 40%, the damage could have been historic.
http://www.hornets247.com/2012/12/08/game-on-hornets-visit-the-heat/
There’s more in the Game On, but from where I sit, that’s a small victory, as is stated there.
Well, let’s think about “context”.
We allowed 7 3s in that game. To put that in context, if we averaged seven 3s allowed last season, that would have placed us tied for 26th in the league.
The 64% 3-point FG% we allowed in this game on threes is what a lot of teams shoot on free throws.
It was the highest 3-point FG% we allowed in the last 11 games (and I’m guessing possibly the whole season but I was too lazy to check mnore than the past 11 games).
The 58% FG% we allowed by Miami, was a Miami season high. I didn’t check this, but there’s a good chance it was also the highest3-point FG% for them as well this season.
Let’s consider our 3-point FG% during our last 7 games:
49%, 55%, 44%, 42%, 46%, 47%, 64%.
Just to put that into “context”, in a typical season, maybe only one team lets opponents shoot over 40% on 3s, and it’s usually around 40%. Some seasons there are no teams that allow more than 40%.
That’s just some context for you. No, I can’t really say I see the current trend as one filled with “small victories” in perimeter defense.
And letting teams go 1-1 from distance in 82 games is good, since it’s just that 1 extra point compared to a foot-on-the-line-two, or it’s bad since it’s 100%?
Some of this whining has to stop… Last I saw we Chris Paul and David West left in free agency…. West outright left and Chris allowed us to trade him… As we all know, the league took over the team from Mr. Shinn alleged the worse owner in professional basketball.. Try googling his name..
Moving know about the post CP3 trade foolishness just as the Lebron James and Dwight Howard not to miss Melos trade among others… We brought in a new coach and GM… who tried to keep the team competitive by trading CP3 for veterans..
Demps convected deals with both the Lakers and Rockets that were denied by League ownership… We traded with the Clippers wherein Paul currently plays.. In turn, we acquired Eric Gordon, the Invisible Ghost.. Kaman, and Aminu plus a first round choice.. I don’t recall anything else…
Then a decision was made to dump contracts JJ, Belinelli, Ariza, Posey, Okafor, and Mo Pete… It is what it is.. We had a bunch of young players and we brought in rising talent in free agency…
Last season Coach played the bench post veteran dump… Now in the NBA we know there is major trading during the season.. this begins Dec. 15… This team despite the presence of Eric Gordon and Anthony Davis will trade for a player or two…
Several teams are looking at Lopez.. I like Delembert who wants to leave the Bucks… How will Davis and Lopez work together considering Lopez’s contract… But Coach doesn’t even have his entire playbook implemented I understand.. We obviously need a veteran point guard… Vasquez has far too many turnovers…
They extended Vasquez but not Aminu nor Henry plus these guys were lottery choices… Aminu makes $3M and Henry $2.5M approximately.. They aren’t starters… Who thinks they are… I am sure not Coach…
And on the Pelican problem.. it is an awesome bird from prehistoric times… If that’s the name Benson loves and his wife.. LOL.. so be it.. There was talk of getting the Jazz but who knows.. unimportant but a symbol of a restored wetlands…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNl_uWmQXE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQSubToXKDo
Love the post. Only not sure about the Lopez trade part, especially for another big. Delembert is a 31 year old center and we are in the mist of a youth based rebuilding program. That trade won’t happen. Plus we need help at guard and SF. We have a wealth of talented bigs.
Will we trade a big for a small? Generally you don’t do that in the NBA without a sweetener: a draft pick or receiving better talent. Lopez for Bledsoe? Sure, but I don’t think the Clippers make that trade even though they need help at center for the playoff run; they give up way too much.
The real question is: why trade Lopez or Smith when you can sign free agents this summer, and draft players, to improve your team at other positions?
Lopez and Smith seem to be key pieces of the puzzle. Lopez currently has a PER of 19.88. That is a top 40 PER in the entire NBA! (You don’t have to be an Insider to use visit this site: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics)
Lopez is an exceptionally valuable piece we got for basically nothing and signed for way below market value.
In Dell I trust.
Pardon the proof reading or lack there of… Regarding Lopez I was quoting an article discussing teams making a run who might want to inquire about Lopez and you are right about his upside.. Another person of interest is Ryan Anderson… The Lakers are in said to want to give us Gasol for him.. but they want to cherry pick every roster..
I just wanted to remind the pity party crowd that we are starting over but the main character has never played for us in reality… Gordon played 7 games with us and now he is rehabbing.. only in the NBA or is it only in America… a union agreement…
We should do better overall when Davis returns and also the Ghost..
The product on the floor can at times look pretty bad. However keep in mind that the Hornets have played the toughest schedule so far in the NBA. EG has missed every game and AD has missed 13 games. We are only 19 games into the 1st year of a rebuilding program.
AD may be back this coming week. EG, who knows, maybe early January (although I’m not holding my breath). The schedule will get easier, starting in late December. We will still lose lots of games but this does have a positive aspect – a high lottery pick. This team needs another high draft choice. Next year they will have some cap space to look for a veteran free agent(s).
Everyone needs to look at the big picture. No doubt there are problems such as walk-up attendence, but this is due to the time of the year and the best players being injured. Benson changing the name to the Pelicans (or maybe something else) is his way of making a break with the past and starting anew. We can argue that Pelicans is not the best name choice for a basketball team but Benson paid the money and it’s his call.
All and all things could be worst. The biggest unknown going forward is EG. Can he play? Does he want to play? Will he need microfracture surgery? Once we know how EG’s situation plays out, then we can continue to plan for the future.
I like the way Monty is rotating the players in the last three games
We have reverted to last year’s rotation philosophy… With EG we need to get serious.. What happens to River’s minutes when EG returns… Then we have Vasquez vs Roberts… The former has far too many turnovers…
Honestly I do not think EG will return any soon, if he does. Vasquez might have minutes as SG, depending on other team PG/SG characteristics. Vasquez has been awful since the Thunder game. But, when the pick and roll is not working, and the first pass goes to the wing, it seems he can either, as SG make good AST, or shoot from perimeter beyong the arc. Guards need to defend better and Vasquez/Mason is a pretty bad couple on that . Who might play at the PG? Brian / Rivers…