Hornets Blow 25 Point Lead in Loss to the Lakers. Everyone is Sad.

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Published: March 6, 2013

Monty Williams

That’s the narrative after the Hornets blew a 19 point lead at home over the Lakers. Monty Williams

On twitter, in the comments of the Game On, in text messages to me. It’s all about Monty Williams–in particular how it’s his fault for the loss.

Except that it’s not only Monty’s fault.

Yes he’s a large part of the collapse, but he’s also the main reason the Hornets built a 25 point lead. We can complain and yell about those 7 minutes of madness where the Lakers went on a 20-0 run but the blame needs to be shared.

Jodie freaking Meeks went off from deep in the 4th quarter hitting 4. Kobe did his Kobe thing. Gordon and Vasquez went 0-11 for zero points.

And then, of course, there is Monty. Keeping Davis on the bench so that Lopez could guard Howard is borderline inexcusable. You have to give Howard credit that while he wasn’t scoring in the 4th quarter, he was making his presence felt on offense. But not enough that Monty kept Lopez in. Not only that but Lopez was getting wrecked on the pick and roll in the 4th when the Lakers ran it at him.

And then there was the change in the offense during those last 7 minutes. For the first 41 minutes of the game the Hornets ran a fantastic, slow paced half court offense. It really was just that good. Not based entirely on the pick and roll the offense was free flowing with pindowns, screens, cuts and curls to create open looks. I’m not going to go into too much detail because I’m going to be writing a future post or two about it, and I think a lot of people want to rant.

But with 7 minutes left Monty switched back to the pick and roll and isolation offense we’ve seen–and hated–all year long. The Hornets are not a good jump shooting team and late in the 4th quarter it’s not exactly something you want to rely on. The Hornets did tonight and only put up 9 points total after scoring 93 in three quarter before the change.

There is also the lack of a playmaker on the team. We all want Gordon to be a closer so badly, but he presented us with a big no show tonight. Gordon has to hit that layup or at least draw a foul with 52 seconds left. Same with Vasquez, who has hit a bunch of clutch shots this season. Fault the play calling all you want, but that could easily not matter if Gordon or Vasquez hit their shots.

And then there is the 4th quarter defense. Disgusting. The Hornets defended well for the first 3 periods. And then seemed to break out the bull-fighter-olay-defense. The second a Laker got into the paint the Hornets just gave them space to do what they wanted. The Lakers scored 12 points in the paint in the 4th after only scoring 16 total in the first half.

I’m sure there will be a lot of rehashing this game in the next few days. But tonight, feel free to rant and give us your take in the comments.

 

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