The New Orleans Hornets tip-off at 7 CDT (UTC -5) in their penultimate home game as they host the ever hate-i-er Los Angeles Clippers. The game is on Fox Sports New Orleans and the Hornets Radio Network.
There are give-aways at tonight’s and Sunday’s games, and all Hornets merchandise is 75% off.
The Clippers come to town having won 3 in a row, 6 of the last 10 (including a win against the Hornets), and 52 on the season. They sit in the fourth seed in the West with the fifth best record, and have locked up their first division title in franchise history, even going back to the San Diego and Buffalo (Braves) days. Chauncey Billups is likely out with a definite groin injury, but the rest of the team is healthy. Look for Paul, Griffin, Jordan, Butler, and Green to start and for super-sixth minutes from Crawford.
The Hornets continue to lost in a swarm of injury bugs, with Vasquez out tonight (at least), with Davis now done for the entire rest of the season (3 games), joining Rivers and Smith on GQ row.
In a dramatic turn of events, this coincides with the re-re-re-emergence of Eric Gordon, who not only played in a back-to-back for the first time in just over a year (April 6+7 2012), but also is scoring like a max man, scoring 90 points on 60 shots across the last 5 games, one of which he missed half of due to being benched. He also recorded his first 2 offensive rebounds in a month in the most recent 2 games (one each). Baby steps.
Roberts, Gordon, Aminu, Anderson, and Lopez should start leaving Monty with Amundson, Harris, Henry, Mason, Miller, and Thomas to fill in from the bench.
Some of these Hornets are playing for contracts here and elsewhere. They are up against a superior foe, but they should play hard individually. They will need to play as a team to win. That falls on the shoulders of Monty, Gordon, and sweet basketball justice.
Do we get to sprinkle on our own luck, or is Cafe Du Monde style?
5 responses to “Game On: Clippers @ Hornets”
The only good thing (besides ping pong balls) about Davis’ injury Is that lance Thomas should finally get some minutes. I think Monty realizes exactly what he has in lance, so he’s been going with the question mark that is Henry, but lance deserves some minutes!
In my opionion, Thomas would do the best when matched up against elite small forwards out of everyone we currently have. He’s already proved he can deal with melo, and I’d give him the best chances out of our current roster to hang with lebron and durant.
Lance finally started to show he was improving his mid range game before he got benched a few months ago and I’m interested to see if its gotten any better
Anyway, I really hope we can bring him back for the minimum next year, as you can never have enough hustle!!
No minutes given to Lance Thomas! 🙁 Sorry.
BTW, 14/28 free throw shooting? Come on!
Andrew smith tweeted something about him being hurt, so hopefully that’s the reason. But the fact that we can compete with a team like the clippers without 4 of our 8 best players is very impressive!
Lance was playing through a sprained MCL but had a foot injury that sidelined him, not sure how long he’ll be out.
I am popping in on the way home to say thanks to Hornets247 for the tickets to tonight’s game!
I took my 3 yr old to his first game and he really had a blast. I will report back once I get home but I wanted to say thanks!