After a year of writing and chatting and interviewing and transcribing and sitting on my hands so I don’t jump up and scream “GEAUX HORNETS!”, I can finally take a load off and watch a game as a fan. Not only that, but I’m going to be participating in the Walk On’s Skills Challenge, giving one and all a chance to laugh at me in person.
Oh, and there’s a basketball game, too.
As someone who is an expert on my basketball game, let me tell you that the three point shot could get ugly. I’ve done someone similar to this before, and the results were less than stellar. I went 0-5 from behind the arc, hitting the rim maybe once. My passing was atrocious. The only nice thing I can say about my basketball game is that I realize my limitations and really only try to have an impact on the defensive end, and I can handle the ball pretty well.
That spells trouble for me in the skillS (note the S) challenge. This is what happened last time I tried this. Note the constant laughing in the background.
In order to get you to root for me, I’m committing any prize money I win to a post-game beer fund at Walk On’s. If you come and say hi, I’ll make sure a cold one gets sent your way.
Wait, this is a post about professional basketball? My bad!
The Hornets remain a game ahead of Sacramento in the race to the bottom, with Cleveland just a game and a half behind. Benson’s Boys continue to control their own destiny in terms of the three-seed in the lottery drawing, but even a single win could potentially allow both Cleveland and Sacramento to split combinations with us.
Read what Jason has to say about our lottery odds.
The Rockets come into tonight’s game tied for ninth place out West and half a game back of the eighth seeded Utah Jazz. You remember the Jazz, right? They’re that team that abandoned town, stole our name, and then tried to ruin the Hornets tankjob a few nights ago by letting us own them in the fourth quarter. Yeah, those Jazz.
Houston lost four straight to knock them from 6th in the playoff race to the outside looking in, largely in part to poor defensive play. If there was ever a squad to get back on track against, the Bobcats are it. Don’t worry though, the Hornets aren’t far behind!
I find it hard to believe that the Hornets won’t play Eric Gordon in the final home game of the year. I can see Ariza sitting again, but if Gordon is out there and the rest of the guys are playing well, the Hornets have a chance. Well, if Dyson plays like he did last night, they may have more than just a chance. As Mason noted earlier on twitter, Dyson was the NBA’s most efficient scorer with 20+ points last night, tallying them on just SEVEN shot attempts.
As Ryan said of his performance, “Nice.”
I’d expect to see a fair bit of Dyson tonight, as Monty will undoubtedly look to see if he can continue that kind of play. Let’s get real—if that’s the kind of player he is, we’d be dumb not to give him a hard second look this summer.
Speaking of Hornets that will probably see a good bit of time, Daryl Watkins was the team’s leading rebounder last night, setting a career high with 13 in just 29 minutes. If the Hornets brought Watkins on to lead the tank, they made a poor decision. Dude played really well last night.
Anyway, it’s the last home game of the year and the first x,000 fans get a crawfish bobblehead or something. You know you need one of those, so get down the Arena early and make sure you go home with something pretty.
8 responses to “Game On: Rockets @ Hornets (Aka Joe vs The Basket)”
Joe, maybe we need you running the point to insure a successful completion to operation tank. It seems that in a cruel twist of fate, the end of the 2011-2012 Hornets season could see our basketball heroes falling short once again. We lamented all of those games we couldn’t finish out early in the year. Now it appears that we may not be able to successfully??? finish operation tank by losing these last 4 games. I just looked at the remaining schedules for Sacramento and Cleveland. Neither of those teams will win more than one game the rest of the way. Most likely they will both lose out for the remainder of the season. Is there any chance the entire team can be shut down for the remainder of the season because of “knee bruises”?
Wow. That was some deadly three point shooting in that video. Additionally, it looked like you were delivering a pizza when you came around the last pylon, executing one of the most egregious carrying violations I’ve seen in a long time.
Good luck tonight. Shock the world!!! (and Go Hornets.)
Unbelievable! Joe, they should allow you to shoot the 3’s from the corner instead! 🙂 Or, you should try the Pistol Pete Maravich shot!
By the way, as of today Cavs and Kings are only 1 game above us with 20 wins each.
Kings will play OKC twice, Lakers and the Bobcats.
Cavs play SAS, MEM, CHI away, NYK and WAS at home.
Hopefully, Kings will win against the Cats. Cavs might or might not win against the Wizards. If the Cavs cannot beat them. We will tie them with a win. Interestingly, We played Cavs only once this season and won that game. That I think means with a win in our remaining four games, We will move on top of Cleveland.
Kings beat us 3/4 this season. So, If the Kings beat the Bobcats, Even if we win two games we cannot pass them in standings.
So, It looks like we may finish 3rd or 4th worst if we win any more games. 5th if we win too many! Golden State have lost their last 6 and they will probably want to lose more not to pass Toronto or New Jersey because of that top-7 protected pick they have. So, there you go, that’s a win for us and we catch and pass Cleveland with that.
Our chances of landing the first pick in the draft reduces almost 50% if we move from the 3rd worst to the 5th worst! by 27% if we move from 3rd to 4th. The chances are as follows:
Seed Chances 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th
1 250 .250 .215 .178 .357
2 199 .199 .188 .171 .319 .123
3 156 .156 .157 .156 .226 .265 .040
4 119 .119 .126 .133 .099 .351 .160 .012
5 88 .088 .097 .107 .261 .360 .084 .004
So as you can see, the number of ping pong balls reduces from 156 to 88 if you move from 3rd spot to the 5th spot (that is almost a 50% decrease in likelihood of landing the first pick)
This has been a bad season and yes our team is good and can win games when key players are healty. As much as I want our Hornets to win every game, we gotta be clever now! Because, other teams: Kings, Cavs, Warriors, Wizars and Bobcats maybe even Nets and Raptors does not want to win.
GSW, Kings and Cavs have won 7 out of their 23 games combined! We have won 6 out of our last 9! Gotta be careful now!
One might say how come I root for losses. However, After all the questionable bone bruises and the losses due to them; I, as a Hornets fan, think that we deserve 4 more losses this season so that we might have wins much more valuable than another win that we will get this season. I understand Eric Gordon is trying to showcase himself for free agency but I hope his ambitions will not hurt the future of our ballclub! Even if we were not tanking all season long and playing as hard as we can to win, but still losing due to lack of experience; it is time not to let those tanking teams (Kings, Cavs, Warriors) win against us. Yes, they will be winning by losing and we might be losing by winning!
BTW, I could help but watch 00:31-00:39 of the video once more. Joe, were your eyes closed? 🙂 No way! I wish you the best of luck (!) tonight and I hope you practiced a couple of 3’s last weekend. 🙂
I assumed I would miss them all, so I just shot as fast as I could.
This could get ugly.
ffs can we please start Joe instead of Gordon?
How did it go Joe? I was unable to attend tonight’s game.
Well Well! Geaux Hornets! 🙂 It is always good to win. Who cares if we finish the 2nd worst or the 4th worst? For the records, we finished the second worst in 04-05 and we went down to the 4th pick in the lottery. Result? Hornets pick Chris Paul! So, Unless we get the first pick and bring down Anthony Davis, it is all about scouting and finding the player with the star potential!
Geaux Hornets! Nothing can be better than finishing the season with an overtime win at home.
PS. We are playing very well. I bet we will beat the Warriors as well. Seems like we are locked at 4th now. Oh wow! 🙂