(11/09/09)
Game Seven : Los Angeles Lakers
Six games have passed since the last update. Our apologizes. The Saints, Swine Flu, and alcohol have been the main reason for the absence of updates. Not to mention our anger has built up and caused a lack of hope. But we now feel the time has come to push this to the next level.
There are so many topics to discuss, but we can start with the players Scott plays during the games.
Bobby Brown: Over time certain players on the Hornets rosters seem to be the worst players in the NBA. David Wesley, Mike James, Devin Brown....Now we have Bobby Brown and Devin Brown. How lucky. Brown seems athletic enough and scores enough to see why people think hes not the problem. Lets review his games over the last 6 games.
Kings: 18 minutes-- 1-4 shooting -- 3 points 1 assist. Terrible
Boston: 20 Minutes-- 3-12 shooting-- 8 Points 1 assist. Even worse. Remember Peja was on fire this game and JuJu was 3-6 shooting and hustling to save balls all over the place. Instead of playing CP3, JuJu, Peja, D West, and Okafor, we played Brown......A coach unwilling to change his rotation. Luckily he kept Peja in. Problem was he played Brown of JuJu, who was shooting well and getting us extra possessions.
Knicks: Brown was 2-7 with 5 points.....Sadly and Improvement from the Boston game.
Dallas: At first his stats and performance seem fine. 30 Minutes, 18 points on 8-15 shooting in a win. But look deeper. Remember Dallas making a run late to overtake the lead. Well in the 4th quarter alone Brown had only one basket, while missing 4 shots, committing 1 turnover and 2 fouls. The basket he made was a breakaway dunk because CP3 stripped the ball and made a great pass to Brown. What is so bad about this is that CP3 was on fire. This means we needed a player who could control the ball and distribute it to CP3. Instead Brown launches up 15 shots and only has 1 assist. If the Mavs make free throws there is a lot of blame to go around but Browns play would have been the biggest reason.
Raptors: 27 Minutes with 16 Points. but was only 2-6 from deep.
Lakers: 2-9 shooting for 4 points. Also was 0-4 from 3 point land.
After reading this, can anyone explain to me why they think that Brown should be playing over our # 1 draft pick, Collison? I mean besides the fact that Scott refuses to play rookies (good thing we sign veterans to big deals instead....think Posey, Mo Pete).
Defense philosophy is a reason Scott says rookies don't play, and a reason that he benches players. Let's dissect this. He plays Bobby Brown and CP3 at the same time. Obviously providing the other team with a mis-match. The only reason to do this is if it is offset by our offensive production. Reading Bobby Browns stats above, it does not seem that we have a greater offensive output as compared to CP3 being forced to guard Jason Terry and exhaust himself chasing him.
There is not many specifics that we can point out because we have such a lack of talent on this team. The main issue is why do Marcus Thorton and Collison sit the bench?
We have CP3, D West, Okafor, Peja, JuJu (even if Peja and JuJu struggle some) as 5 people who we know can play. Posey, Songilia, Hilton are average at best, but can be quality 8-10 guys, not 6-8 in your rotation. Enter Collison and Thorton again.
Before Sunday's Lakers game Scott announced that Mo Pete would be inactive/benched and Devin Brown would be starting. I was glad Mo Pete was being benched, but did it really take 6 games to figure this out? And even when it became obvious he was hurting the team, why to such extremes? Starting to inactive? The same can be said in reverse. Devin Brown was playing 4 minutes a game. 0 points on 4 shots. Not exactly promising stats to lead to hope. But its also Scott decision making here....Brown clearly wont be in game shape since he barely played. Rumors are the Brown cannot dunk the ball. That's right. 6 foot 5 and CANT dunk. Whoa. Be interesting to see if that's actually true. But Mo Pete from starter to inactive, and Devin Brown from 4 minutes a game to starter. Why so extreme? Maybe Mo Pete can be reliable off the bench? Who knows. Obviously Scott thought that Mo Pete was good enough to start. If Mo Pete is now inactive....don't you have to question his decision to start him in the first place. And if a guy is good enough to start but was only playing 4 minutes a game before that, don't you have to question the decision to have him sitting the bench.
This does not make sense on any level. Coaching, common sense, life... nothing.
Lets see what happens tonight and this week. A lineup of CP3 - Thorton - JuJu - D West - Okafor, with Collison - Peja - Songilia - Posey - Hilton seems decent to me. You can mix and match Mo Pete and Bobby Brown (if so inclined) off the bench.
And where is Sean Marks? The guy not only played well last year (after a bad start), but he knows CP3s game, learned the pick 'n roll lob game, and he actually won a few games for us last year with his strong play inside.
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(10/28/09)
Game One : @ San Antonio Spurs
When the game started I had hope but I knew that we would lose pretty easily. Why? Let's see.
Hornets starting line up: CP3, Mo Pete, JuJu, D West, and Okafor.
Issue # 1: Who is our deep threat? Who can shoot the three? If Mo Pete is our 3 point threat we are screwed. The last double digit point scoring game Mo Pete had was in December of 2008. The last time he scored 20+ was in October of 2008. He had only 4 games of 20+ points the season before. Only 5 games of 20+ in 2 seasons. Not a great deep threat. So what do we do? I really don't know. The rest of the starters played fine. JuJu only had 8 points but had 4 rebounds and 2 steals and an assist. Okafor was extremely promising. D West and CP3 were their usual selves. So our glaring problem is the 2 guard.
So why did Scott choose to get rid of Butler and keep Mo Pete? Butler is younger and can shoot the three and just had his best year as a pro. Mo Pete is older and just came off his worst year as a pro.....Interesting Strategy.
Issue # 2: As for our bench - We bring in Peja and Armstrong. Armstrong was Armstrong. In good position and craps himself with a mistake. Peja was fine. 1-2 making a 3 point shot. He just needs to shoot more, which he will. It was also good to bring in Posey a little later and playing him less than last year. He got worn down last season. Hopefully this trend continues. Bobby Brown struggled and Collison played 3 garbage minutes. Our back up PG spot which needed a huge upgrade - Brown seems like he will help, but one game in and Coach Scott is showing the same trend with the rookies. During last years draft, Hornets fans were screaming for Dejuan Blair to become a Hornet. Well Blair had 14 points 11 rebounds and 3 ast. in 23 minutes. Collison had 1 point and 1 rebound in 3 minutes. I like Colison, but if we are not going to play him and we are trading for Bobby Brown then we did we waste a pick on Collison and not take Blair. Brilliant.
I wonder if Scott would even play Blair? Probably not.
Issue # 3: We played fine on offense but our defense was the issue tonight (besides our bench play). Every year we hear Scott say that we are a defensive minded team and you won't play if you don't play defense. Well our defense was terrible. Why? Well we doubled down on their post players almost every time. Tim Duncan had only 9 points. Boner had 11, but he shoots jumpers. McDyess, Blair and Ratliff are their other post players? Any worth doubling? Okafor played well on Duncan. West plays decent defense. CP3 is great at defense. JuJu's specialty is defense in a man to man situation. So that leaves Mo Pete? Hes OK. Who needs help? This is coaching plain and simply. Not only did we fail to change our defensive scheme (not one zone) but we kept doubling in the post.
This was terrible line up changes. Terrible scouting. Terrible coaching. Terrible scheme defensively. We should see an easy win in Game 2 against the Kings so we probably can't argue much in an easy win. Hopefully he uses Collison and Thorton. Thorton... our answer at 2 Guard? I think so - and I am a Tulane fan.
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