The Cirque de Chaleur comes to New Orleans


Game Preview
Matchup:
Heat(4-1) @ Hornets(4-0)
Off Efficiency: Heat 109.1(3rd), Hornets 106.3(8th)
Def Efficiency: Heat 87.9(1st), Hornets 97.5(5th)

Yes, the Circus known as the Heat pays a visit tonight in New Orleans.  There’s a tremendous amount of interest in this team, and that fuels a veritable circus of coverage, which in turn ignites more interest, which fuels . . . etc. etc.

Well, there’s a reason for the coverage.  This team is good.  They have had the best defense in the league so far, and the third best offense.  That, however, should be taken with a grain of salt.  There have been only 5 games so far, and while their crushing of Orlando was very impressive, their other three wins came against patsies Minnesota, New Jersey and Philadelphia.

This is a winnable game.

To pull out the win tonight, the Hornets will have three keys to the game:

  1. Limit the fouling.  The Heat are the fifth best team at drawing free throws.  The Hornets can’t keep up with that, no matter what happens in Houston.  They’ll have to be judicious.
  2. Control the three point line.  The Heat have only had one bad game shooting from deep.  In all four other games, they’ve generated good, efficient shots from there.  The Hornets will have to rotate to the perimeter swiftly to limit this.
  3. Watch the turnovers.  The Heat has generated way more turnovers per game than they give up, taking an extra 4 possessions per game from their opponent.  The Hornets will need every possession to win, they can’t give them away.

Thanks to Dariusz Ejkiewicz for the great game-day banner!

Simulation

The NBA 2k11 simulation results in a  Hornets loss tonight 117-113.  Ariza will drop 26, West gets 25, and Paul scores 5 points with 12 assists.  Somehow, I’m skeptical we’ll see Ariza drop 26 points in a game this season.

Injuries:

Heat: Mike Miller is out.  LeBron has a bruised shin.  It doesn’t matter, because he’ll still play, but it was much reported on, so I figured I’d mention it.
Hornets: Marcus Thornton is probable (strained left achilles).

Positional Analysis

PG: Carlos Arroyo v Chris Paul
Advantage: Hornets
Arroyo has been playing well off the big Miami Trio, knocking down his open shots, and generally just bringing up the ball and getting out of the way.  Paul has been playing like a surgeon, cutting up the defense when necessary to pull out a win, while still putting up amazing, efficient stats.  Paul will need to keep that up to take this game.

SG: Dwyane Wade v Marco Belinelli
Advantage: Heat
If we didn’t need Paul to work so hard offensively, I’d almost rather see Paul taking Wade defensively.  Paul has a history of frustrating Wade and making him work for his shots, and they’ve had some epic battles.  I fully expect to see those two matched up during the closing minutes of the game.  As for Cookies, I hope he gets his shots, but I have a feeling Wade is going to treat him like a bumper in a pinball machine and get multiple and-ones.

SF: LeBron James v Trevor Ariza
Advantage: Heat
Ariza should handle James and his power game better than he handled Kevin Martin and his finesse.  Still, LeBron has a brilliant all-around game, and Ariza just doesn’t produce much offensively.

PF: Chris Bosh v David West
Advantage: Heat
I almost made this a tie.  Bosh has not fit in well with the Heat yet.  His rebounding has been mediocre, his scoring has been very, very inefficient for him, and he’s just not producing what you’d expect.  West’s offense has been better so far this year, but his rebounding has been even worse than Bosh’s, and Bosh’s defense has always been superior to his – so this is a minor advantage for the Heat right now.

C: Joel Anthony v Emeka Okafor
Advantage: Hornets
Anthony plays 20 minutes a game.  He’s just like Emeka Okafor, if Okafor didn’t rebound or score.  Yeah.  He’s that bad.

Bench
James Jones, Eddie House, Udonis Haslem, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mario Chalmers
Marcus Thornton, Jason Smith, Willie Green, Jerryd Bayless, DJ Mbenga
Advantage: Heat
This is one of the great fallacies about the heat.  Their bench isn’t a weakness.  Jones and House provide pure, dead-eye shooters off the bench at the wing spots.  Haslem is a tough post defender and rebounder, who can score in a pinch.  Ilgauskas and Chalmers provide nice options as a fourth big man and a backup point guard.  This is a solid unit.  The Hornets have a nice guard rotation, but unless Jason Smith is playing better than expected, the frontline gives up a lot.

Enjoy the game!

____

Notes from the Arena

  • If the Hornets win, they will move to 5-0 for the first time in franchise history.
  • The Hornets have averaged just under 15 fast break points per game so far. Last year they averaged a hair over 15.
  • New Orleans has held it’s last four opponents to under 100 points. This is the first time since 12/30/09 – 1/8/10 that this has happened. Beefence, baby.
  • Chris Paul needs six free throws to set the Hornets all time franchise record.
  • At tip off, David West will pass Larry Johnson for the fourth most starts in franchise history.
  • Monty talked about Peja a little bit during the pre-game chat, saying that he doesn’t know when he will return to the active list. He mentioned potential injuries as a possible cause for his return.
  • He also said that Paul, who suffered a cramp late in the game Wednesday, is fine.
  • LeBron is going to start, and is apparently OK.

I (Joe) will be be over on the ESPN Daily Dime Chat throughout the game, so come on over and chime in.


128 responses to “The Cirque de Chaleur comes to New Orleans”

      • it’s nba2k11 or something like that. Supposed to be a pretty good game. I believe it’s on just about every platform.

        Pretty much Michael just runs game (it updates daily) one time, and then posts what happens.

        We show it because we like to think we’re smarter than computers. It’s been REALLY off so far.

  1. The Heat are favored by 7 in this game. Do I take Hornets +12 (with a 5 point teaser) along with another game?

    Hm….

    • Well seeing as CST will only broadcast about 65 games this year, I’m guessing the Sat. game is one they are skipping out on. Don’t ask me why cuz I have no idea why they don’t broadcast every single game.

  2. If Ariza drops 26 in any game, I am sure we will win that one! Geaux Hornets! Beat the Heat! Beat the Heat! Beat the Heat!

  3. Another key for a Hornets win is to not let role players go off. You can’t let James Jones and Eddie House kill you on 3’s from the corner. And you can’t continually allow yourselves to get outrebounded by Udonis Haslem.

  4. This is actually a nice game to go into undefeated. If we lose… well its the Heat, right? They’re expected to beat to win. If we win however, I suspect the Hornets bandwagon will be instantly overloaded with talking heads proclaiming how great the Hornets are, and how they knew it all along. (I’m taking the view that even if we win, it’s an encouraging sign, but not instant proof we’re going to win the championship).

    Frankly I’d be happy with making all of the Heat “big three” play more than 30 minutes a game. I think one easily overlooked advantage the Heat have is that they’re going to get some big leads in games which will let them rest their stars a lot during the regular season.

    • Agree with the majority of this post, we can go out there with no pressure whatsoever, execute ill gameplan, and hopefully make alot of noise….a win would be the icing on our sweet cake of a season (thus far :D)

  5. After all the battles myself and im sure many of you guys waged on other websites defending our beloved hornets and CP3. It would make me sick to start reading sherridan and brousard jump on the ” We always knew the hornets would be good” BS, hate on haters, this is the place to be for any “true” hornets fan So glad to be a part of this awesome website

  6. i actually hope we win and the lack on interest or hate from the media continues, especially from bill simmons. i can’t stand him every nba article he writes always includes something along the lines of him being so eager for cp3 to leave the hornets. he’s a dork and i hope he actually does become the t’wolves gm and fails worse than kahn!

  7. Two defensive teams scoring a combined 230? Do better, 2k11.

    War Hornets! Ariza did a pretty good job on Lebron when he was with the Lakers.

  8. Well Ryan you’ll be proud of me. I figured out how to watch the game on the internet. (even though I got bumped off a couple of times.) These cable companies, league pass, and all these direct tv, etc., etc. are only hurting themselves by blocking all these games. Good luck Hornets in a tough one.

  9. All my friends are asking me to go out and drink tonight. Apparently, Heat Fans (in South Florida) aren’t even aware their team is playing tonight. Hornets deserve a win.

  10. I believe Q-Pon could cause some trouble on defense. Is he active? I hoping for a win tonight. Although I think that winning against Houston was way more important. Even if we lose both games it would be 4-2 and that would still be great.
    Geaux Hornets!!!

  11. Hopefully us wearing our whites for the first time this season won’t jinx us.

    Wade turning the ball over on the Heat’s first possession.

    • I like Bosh a lot. I was looking forward to seeing his Heat play since I hear that have some good talent with character issues. He does look funny without the hair though. $14.5m and you can’t get a decent haircut? I guess he spent it all on that great seat he had at the game tonight to see Chris beat him and his little Kardashians like they deserved to get beaten.

  12. I cannot stand that Miami announcer Tony Soprano. Why would you hire a dirty New Yorker to do your games in Miami.

  13. Have we been to the free throw line tonight yet? Sean Kelley said it’s tick tack time with the whistles. LOL!

  14. Something tells me Jason won’t be as good as he was the other night. Come on Jason. You can do it man. Hopefully Marcus will be a huge spark off the bench.

  15. Hornets can’t let guys like Eddie House, James Jones have nice games. Can’t let it happen. Not if they want to win.

  16. The first quarter was worth the amission, but lets keep it up. The heat are way too dangerous to be taking lightly.

  17. Be careful with the ball Hornets.

    West back in. Jason gets an ovation. I almost don’t want to take him out right now.

  18. See? I said watch them damn role players.

    Good timeout Monty.

    If this were Byron Scott he’d let the Heat go on a 10-0 run before calling a timeout.

  19. That last fast break was just beautiful. Plays like that make you feel good about team chemistry. What an effort thus far!

  20. Amazing performance by Okafor and Smith! Green is playing great defense!
    Oh, and everyone debating who the best PG is better just stop and face reality, it’s all about CP3!

  21. Heat gameplan = give ball to lebron and let him run full steam ahead until he bumps into someone and gets to the line

    • Our missed shots were creating that, too. That nonsense stopped when we could get in our half-court set.

      They got everything they needed: a stop, a foul, dead clock points. Kudos. Good plan.

      Too bad their $45m in salary only bought them seats to the Okafor double-double feature.

  22. i wake up and we’ve already won. I can’t see the reaction on the Big 3’s face :))

    oh well as long as we win! GO HORNETS! 5 – 0 !! JUST KEEP ROLLING! WOOT

  23. Hahaha! Hugs all around! I know it’s just the fifth game for the Hornets but this one is pretty sweet. 5 and Oh! Hornets247 should throw a party or something.

  24. streamed the game and wow great to watch, we blew a lead though but i guess you can’t not expect a team with Wade/Lebron not to come back hard at you down the stretch, but we held on and that 3 from Ariza at the end was all moneyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I love how the last few points didn’t come from Paul either, shows the team doesn’t need him to do it all even to close out a team like the Heat.

  25. yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss greattttt winnnn

    bahaha i can already see the heat team imploding from within!!

    CP3 MVP OR JASON SMITH MVP both are equally impressive

  26. HERE WE F*CKING GO

    F*CK YOU REFS YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS GAME FROM US. THIS IS OUR HOUSE.

    5-0. SPEAR THE DEER TOMORROW.

  27. Hell yeah! Geaux Hornets!
    omfg, I knew they could do it, I was about to lose my mind before Ariza hit that three, haha.
    It’s 3:44 am here, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to go to sleep now, too pumped!
    And I can not wait to rub it in the face of all the idiots who were hating on the Hornets =)

      • Ach so! Yeah, I’m in Norway.
        I think I’ve watched every game live so far. It’s taken its toll, but now I’m worried that they’ll lose if I miss a game, haha.

        I love the sign someone in the arena had that said
        “Our little 3 > your big 3”

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