Another day, another uninspiring performance against a weak-ass team. Well, for 46 minutes at least. The Hornets turned it on late against the New York Knicks tonight and ended up with a 100-88 victory.

Chris Paul grabbed the game by the balls down the stretch, scoring a couple of tough, clutch buckets and dishing a pair of damn fine assists. It was the type of late-game performance that I wanted to see from him the past two tries against Washington, but no faulting what he did against the Knicks. MVP-caliber stuff right there.

Nate Robinson got his early, but Chris Paul got it done when it mattered most

Moving on to some game notes...

  • Linkage: box | recap | standings

  • CP's line tonight: 27 points, 11-17 FGs, 8 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 turnovers.

  • As mentioned, the game was pretty close through the first 46 minutes. I thought we played much better than yesterday for the most part, especially after the half. The Knicks started the third quarter hitting some shots despite solid defense from our guys. Hands in faces, decent rotations and all that. It seemed like we were on the verge of making a big run for the final two quarters, but couldn't put it together until the death.

  • Tyson Chandler: 15 points, 18 boards, just 3 fouls. I'd call that a fine night's work for the big man. He didn't have it easy either, trying to defend the ever-expanding Eddy Curry down low. Man, that guy takes up more space than Jupiter.

  • Curry actually did quite well against Chandler, scoring 19 points. We needed to do something different in that match up after Eddy started getting on a roll again early in the third. Single coverage wasn't working. How about fronting him, Byron? Or maybe a double team?

    In fairness, we did seem to start doubling down a bit better from the top, forcing Curry to play more like a Knick (i.e. he started sucking), so I guess Coach was paying attention.

  • Our bench did nice in the second quarter -- turning a 4-point deficit into a 1-point lead -- then kept pace in the fourth. Ryan Bowen was his usual bundle of injury, chasing down Knick guards on the break, ending up with rebounds he had no business ending up with. Mike James was nice, too. He's not my favorite type of player in that he appears to be playing mostly for himself out there, but he does give us another guard who can get to the basket and his shooting ain't bad either.

  • Jannero Pargo: not one of his better games. He is a streaky type of player, and I guess we gotta take the good with the bad. Him being the only Hornet to touch the ball on consecutive possessions midway through the fourth quarter didn't bode well for my sanity.

  • I like David Lee. 16 rebounds in 31 minutes ain't easy. Nate Robinson, whatever dude.

  • David West gave us some good minutes out there tonight. He didn't shoot great (8-of-21), but ended up 19 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks.

    A couple of things about the double teams he's still seeing every night. For one, I figure West is a little too small to be a great passer out of those. He can't see or dish over the top of taller defenders, like say a Tim Duncan or a Kevin Garnett is able to do. Second, his teammates are still not doing a great job of alerting West of an impending double. Four minutes left in the game and he got surprised by an extra defender when he made a move baseline. Someone needs to be screaming that shit.

  • Watching the game with a couple of good buddies (Mikey and Gil), we got to wondering how cool it would be if Bowen's middle name began with the letter "L," as in
    Ryan L. Bowen. Get it?

    Unfortunately, Ryan's parents didn't have great foresight and gave him a middle name of Cleo.

  • Peja Stojakovic had a pretty rough shooting night, misfiring on 10 of his 13 attempts and finishing with just 9 points. Still, he did come up with a mega-big bucket, knocking down a triple with 4:24 left in the game. He could miss sixty thousand shots on the night and I'd still be comfortable with him shooting it down the stretch.

  • Morris Peterson was out there late in the fourth quarter tonight, which I don't think we've seen in a while. Methinks Pargo has been given a lot of those crunch time minutes lately. Mo did real good though, putting the clamps on Jamal Crawford down the stretch and finishing with 11 points on the night.

  • There were a few worthy candidates for play of the game, but methinks I'll give it to CP and Tyson for their alley-oop with 1:07 left in the fourth quarter. The Knicks were breaking those up all game but we got one when it mattered most.

  • That brings me on to the officials tonight. Is it just me or has the level of officiating dropped significantly since the All-Star break? I couldn't believe that they twice called the Knicks for non-shooting fouls as they clobbered Tyson on attempted alley-oops. Those are shot attempts. He's trying to dunk the ball as he catches it.

  • Thankfully, our guys kept their mouths shut about the officiating tonight. They either read Ryan's post, or Byron made some serious threats, because there was a world of difference in the players' behavior compared to the Wiz game yesterday. Nice to see them focusing on the game and not the refs.

So that makes it 40 wins on the season. Nice. Next in line we've got the Atlanta Hawks at the Arena on Wednesday, followed by the New Jersey Nets in the very same building on Friday. After that it's a trip to Texas to face the Rockets, who will hopefully have realized by then that they should suck without Yao Ming.

Crazy fools.

[UPDATE] A couple of videos from the game last night, both found via BallHype.

First, the Knicks forget that the Hornets ain't from Charlotte anymore. Check the scoreboard...

And then we have David Lee scoring in the wrong basket...

Both those videos and more at the hornets247 YouTube group.