GT: Hornets vs Pelicans Fri 1/15 8PM EST

[sidestep]

Its hard to be excited about this team anymore.

The fact that our front office didnt see these defensive issues coming is disturbing. The plan cant be to completely rely on MKG to make our defense work. Biz was OURS. There is no excuse. Now we have lost too much to trade our only expenndable asset of any value (our 1st round pick), so we are now stuck withthis flawed roster.

Cliff's coaching has also been sliding. I dont like where this season is going. We are all in on MKG saving us at this point.

well, the coulda shoulda woulda about biz is a neverending topic, but whatever, its done.
and indeed MKG's return is not going to be a super bandaid.

as for the continuing defensive problems, just attributing it to low defensive effort, or cliff's failure in preparation, doesnt seem enough to explain it, since we are so far into the season by now. and it's not the new guys this year such as lin and batum that are the main cause. rather, it's the personnel that have been with cliff for a while now, guys who knows what cliff wants but for whatever reason, it's not happening on the court.

[Braggins]

Its hard to be excited about this team anymore.

The fact that our front office didnt see these defensive issues coming is disturbing. The plan cant be to completely rely on MKG to make our defense work. Biz was OURS. There is no excuse. Now we have lost too much to trade our only expenndable asset of any value (our 1st round pick), so we are now stuck withthis flawed roster.

Cliff's coaching has also been sliding. I dont like where this season is going. We are all in on MKG saving us at this point.

well, the coulda shoulda woulda about biz is a neverending topic, but whatever, its done.
and indeed MKG's return is not going to be a super bandaid.

as for the continuing defensive problems, just attributing it to low defensive effort, or cliff's failure in preparation, doesnt seem enough to explain it, since we are so far into the season by now. and it's not the new guys this year such as lin and batum that are the main cause. rather, it's the personnel that have been with cliff for a while now, guys who knows what cliff wants but for whatever reason, it's not happening on the court.

My problem is that our defense has always sucked without MKG and our roster changes this off season made us even more reliant on him. It was just a bad plan. The thing that makes it so infuriating is that simply spending the couple mil on Biz could have helped tremendously, bit we didnt and we made no attempt to replace what he gave us. Tyler Hansbrough is a joke.

We literally now have five dead roster spots (Al, Psycho, Troy, Roberts, Harrison). The overhaul at the top of our roster has been successful, but we somehow managed to come into this season with more dead weight at the bottom than last season. It really magnifies the stupidity in letting Biz go. At least his fans in Charlotte will have plenty of time to watch him winning playoff games since the only Charlotte related activity we'll have to do during the playoffs is watch draftexpress videos of potential late lottery picks.

[tondi123]

You could see us prematurely giving up on Biz and him going somewhere else and being a solid contributor a mile away. Cliff always seemed to hate him for some reason which was odd for a guy who claims to love defense and rebounding. Oh well, might as well get used to him playing for teams that are better than we are for the next ten years.

[bigbob]

there were two mistakes made on that PnR play. the pelicans were just running horns. that brought up marvin and cody to the top because their guys were acting as the 'horns.'



first mistake is that the team wasnt calling out what was happening, so kemba didnt know which direction and where davis was coming from. as a result, kemba neither goes under the screen, nor over it -- he just runs straight smack dead center into davis. that basically puts kemba out of the play because hes like 1 to 2 steps behind holiday at the get go. he later kinda trips while trying to recover.

after holiday uses davis' screen, cody does not quickly bump davis to slow down his dive to the basket. he fails to do that and instead goes straight towards holiday. cody comes up way too far, all the way up to the 3 pt line, to 'defend' holiday. its a big mistake and that gives davis an easy roll to the basket, since the entire area behind cody is open space. the paint area is empty except for davis.



if cody had dropped down towards the elbow instead, the best shot that holiday could have gotten was a contested long 2 pter, which is ideal for the hornets. and if cody had sagged down like that, kemba would have eventually recovered to be able to at least contest any outside jumper that holiday attempted. but cody simply comes up too far against holiday.

horns is standard. this is simple stuff and the team still hasnt figured out how to defend pnr. cody is a good rotation defender, but as one of the main defenders in the pnr, he really biffed that one up tonight. as for the lack of talking and communication, there are many places to point blame at for that.

kemba could learn a thing or two from Lin. I noticed that when a center sets the screen like that on Lin, and blocks him from going one direction, usually Lin just goes the other way, for example in this case Lin would have gone left instead of right. This would have effectively done 2 things: 1) stopped AD from gaining that open lane to the bucket and 2) let cody to stay on his man.

This is actually the biggest reason for why I think Cliff screwed up this game, this play right here. If I were the coach, I would not have played kemba on this defensive play. I would have had Lin guard the opposing PG, and brought in PJ Hairston to cover the wing. Bringing out a player who is BARELY 6 foot on the most important defensive play of the game is just incredibly stupid. It is similar to if the celtics brought out Isaiah Thomas to defend an important shot from a 6'5 guard in the last few seconds of regulation. For important defensive plays, you bring out your big athletic guys...its just common sense. Cliff needs to get over being subservient to kemba/batum or any other player. YOU are the coach, Cliff, make the decisions the right way and don't let dumb politics get in the way in the most crucial moment! You ****!

[bws94]

We have who we have and MKG comes back when he does. Sounds simple but that's the way it is. We won with most of the same guys on the court at home earlier in the year minus Al. We are losing winnable games. Yeah, key guys were playing with injuries compromising their game and our best guy was out for a lot but still, he played last night and we still lost. Got to step up. Wanting Biz and others won't change the fact that these are the guys that are going to battle on the floor now, and they could do much better and get more Ws and that includes the main guy, Cliff, on the sidelines leading them.

[fatlever]

http://queencityhoops.com/blog/breaking-down-anthony-davis-dunk-to-beat-hornets/

another breakdown of the last play by QCH,

[qiantom]

http://queencityhoops.com/blog/breaking-down-anthony-davis-dunk-to-beat-hornets/

another breakdown of the last play by QCH,

Kemba should have gone under the screen and Cody should have sticked with Davis more. Don't really see what Lin could have done to stop Davis there.

[catch20two]

http://queencityhoops.com/blog/breaking-down-anthony-davis-dunk-to-beat-hornets/

another breakdown of the last play by QCH,

Kemba should have gone under the screen and Cody should have sticked with Davis more. Don't really see what Lin could have done to stop Davis there.

Kemba go under the screen then Jrue get a open look at a 3.

What should've happened was Cody should've showed hard and disrupted their pick and roll forcing Jrue to pass to a perimeter player and reset their offense. However it seem like Cliff's scheme to defend PnR's don't usually demand the defender of the picker to hedge. It's a coulda woulda shoulda situation where we stuck to our guns and the Pelicans made us pay for it.

[qiantom]

http://queencityhoops.com/blog/breaking-down-anthony-davis-dunk-to-beat-hornets/

another breakdown of the last play by QCH,

Kemba should have gone under the screen and Cody should have sticked with Davis more. Don't really see what Lin could have done to stop Davis there.

Kemba go under the screen then Jrue get a open look at a 3.

What should've happened was Cody should've showed hard and disrupted their pick and roll forcing Jrue to pass to a perimeter player and reset their offense. However it seem like Cliff's scheme to defend PnR's don't usually demand the defender of the picker to hedge. It's a coulda woulda shoulda situation where we stuck to our guns and the Pelicans made us pay for it.

I was going with the assumption of the article saying they would live with Jrue taking an open mid-range. Then they would also live with Jrue taking an open 3 I suppose, both compared to AD getting a lob in hindsight of course.