Solid stretch for us over our last 5 games. We went 4-1 in the stretch bringing our current record to 20-10 (2nd Southwest, 3rd West).

Hornets’ last 5 games:

vs. Houston, W 88-79

at Indiana, W 105-103

vs. Washington, W 97-85

at Portland, W 92-77

at Denver, L 100-105

Not the toughest competition over the stretch, but I think we’ve been playing some good ball lately. We beat Houston sans Ron-Ron, won a squeaker at Indy, beat the bottom feeding Wiz kids, won at Portland sans B.Roy, and we came up short in our comeback attempt at Denver after being down at least 20, losing by 5.

*Player of the Stretch: F/C Hilton Armstrong

Well, maybe not the entire stretch, but Hilton was superb in the final 2 games of the stretch (1-1). He came in and was huge for us after Tyson was tossed at Portland and played great during Tyson’s suspension at Denver. His stats over those 2: 14.5 ppg 4.0 rpg 1.0 spg…Hilton: expand on that, man.

While I’m on the subject of Hilton’s play, did anyone know that Hilton had 0 turnovers against Portland?!?!? He’s truly amazing!

Hornets’ next 5 games:

• at LA Lakers- We’ve already lost to the Lakers (27-5) twice this season. We all know its a huge game and we all know that our guys can’t follow the same M.O. as we have the last 3 games against these guys. We need to be competitive throughout at the very least.

• at Utah- The Jazz (20-15) always play well against us. Utah is always a tough place to play. Deron Williams always gets the better of Chris Paul in their matchup. They’ll be without Boozer just like they’ve been without him for the majority of this season. Hopefully, our luck in Utah changes this year but this game can go either way.

• vs. LA Clippers- The Clippers (8-25) are one of the worst teams in the league. Baron Davis has been banged up. Rookie Eric Gordon and Al Thornton have played well for the Clips this season. Hornets win by at least 10.

• vs. New York- The Knicks (13-19) have played surprisingly well this season in the all offense, very little/no defense system implemented by new coach Mike D’Antoni. Even though they don’t play D, they’ve managed to beat Boston and be competitive vs. the Lakers before losing by 2 which are 2 things that we haven’t done (yet) this season. As long as we don’t let the Knicks “no defense” mentality rub off on us, I think we’ll be fine.

• at Dallas- The Mavericks (20-13) have rebounded nicely after a horrible start and are currently 2.5 games behind us in the division. Big game. We split the season series last year with each team winning both home games then we booted them (4-1) out of the first round of the playoffs so I expect a pretty physical game. My prediction: Dallas starts off playing pretty well, they crumble down the stretch, CP does his “winning time” schtick, and the Bees emerge victorious.

I don’t know where my head is today, but I just re-read this post and it sucks….