With the Kings 105-99 win last night, our Hornets have now lost eleven straight games at Arco Arena, a nasty streak dating back to 1997 or 1897, can't remember which. Suffice to say it was a long time ago. The loss also dropped the Hornets down in the latest standings, where they now lie ahead of the Kings by mere percentage points.

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people-eater…

• Linkage: box | recap | video | photos

• The Hornets lost this one in the first quarter, where they gave up 40 points and fell behind by 16. They spent the rest of the night trying to catch up with the Kings, getting within one point a couple of times in the fourth quarter.
• Byron Scott wasn't happy:

  "That's ridiculous. We definitely didn't do anything to discourage them from getting the points that they got. We just didn’t start off well and that's the starters' job, to go out there a play well. Our guys played terrible in the first quarter. They didn’t get back on defense. They just weren't very focused at the beginning of the game."

  And then some…

  "We played hard the second half. But if we played hard the second half, why can't play hard the first half? You're always frustrated when you don't play as hard as you can. It's very easy to come back and lose, and that's what we did."

  "I told them at halftime, 'If we want to look at a tape of what not to do, this is perfect.' They saw it. We were jogging going back on defense. Second half five transition points. It's not a matter of we can't do it. It was a matter of we didn’t do it."

  Practice ain't gonna be pretty today.

• Ron Artest came up big for the home team, killing the Hornets in every conceivable way. He hit triples, scored inside, played solid D and knocked down some late freebies to preserve the win. His final line might be the best all-round performance we've seen from an opponent this season: 21 points, 9 assists, 6 rebounds, 5 steals.

• Chris Paul had himself a decent game. His 24 points came on a below par 8-of-19 field goals, though he knocked down 3-of-4 from deep. He also dished 6 and stole 5. The Hornets are 2-2 since Paul's return from injury.
• John Rohde tells us Peja Stojakovic shot 41-of-49 at Arco yesterday. What if we just threw dude in a wheelchair and pushed him out to the three-point line?
• The Hornets and Kings may be neck and neck in the standings, but Sam Amick of the Sacramento Bee sees a big difference between the two teams this season…

  Hornets players have missed a combined 102 games because of injury… By comparison, Kings players have missed 26 games because of injury.

• Also from the above link…

  With 7:40 remaining in the fourth quarter, Kings swingman John Salmons lost his left shoe and played one possession in his socks. When Salmons tried to recover the shoe on his way down the floor, Jackson kicked it out of reach, drawing boos.

  Ha. Love it.

• Not loving Bobby's shooting slump. He was 1-of-9 last night. He's now just 7-of-41 shooting in the last five games, which is beyond awful.
• Tyson Chandler narrowly missed another double-double, grabbing 13 boards and scoring 9 points. Opposing center Brad Miller was the hero for Sacto, blocking shots by CP and Devin Brown in the final seconds.
• David West played better than he had for the past week, scoring 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting. He only managed to snare 3 rebounds however. Something's still not right with him.
• Next up for the Hornets are the Nuggets in Denver tomorrow. Those guys are limping right now.

Had a slight scare here on the site last night. Thought everything had been deleted from our database dating back to October last year. My first thought was that Eric Musselman had hired some nerds to hack us after that photo yesterday. It was either that or somebody accidentally pushed the big red "DELETE EVERYTHING SINCE OCTOBER" button.

As you can see, we're now back to normal. Still no idea what happened, just glad that it somehow magically fixed itself. Good old internet.