Matchup: Timberwolves(20-47) @ Hornets(41-25)
Off Efficiency: Timberwolves 102.7(24th), Hornets 106.9(9th)
Def Efficiency: Timberwolves 108.9(27th), Hornets 103.6(10th)
The great expirement to see if three players can average 45 minutes a game for an entire month continues tonight in the New Orleans arena. The Timberwolves are coming in with 2 wins in their last 10 and surprisingly enough have not yet done what they did last year: started tanking games for lottery position. Or maybe they have, and we can't tell.
Anyways, the Wolves are the 5th worst team in the league by differential, are missing their primary scorer, and played last night against the Spurs who were without Duncan and Ginobili, losing by seven. The Hornets are in a nasty playoff fight, and need to snag this game because they do still have a tiny advantage over all but three Western Teams by having less total losses.
There are only two things I can see derailing the Hornets against the Timberwolves: The skilled boardwork of rookie Kevin Love, and the fact that Paul, West and Butler are playing close to 45 minutes a game and look tired in the fourth every game. Hopefully our bench won't lay a big turd against the Wolves bench and those guys can get some more rest in game.
Injuries:
Timberwolves: Al Jefferson is out for the season
Hornets: Peja Stojakovic is still out, and no updates have been seen. I grow nervous.
Positional Analysis
PG: Sebastian Telfair v Chris Paul
Advantage: Hornets
Telfair has actually picked up his game in February, producing 15 points. 5 assists, 0.4 steals, 1.3 rebounds, and 2.4 turnovers along with 46% shooting. The shooting, in particular, is a major increase over the rest of his season as his season average is 37% from the field. Of course, if Chris Paul produced 15 points and 5 assists in 33 minutes to go with maybe a steal and a rebound, I'd be calling it one of the worst games I'd ever seen him play.
SG: Randy Foye v Rasual Butler
Advantage: Even
Foye is a slasher, Butler is a shooter. Both are about as efficient as the other at putting the ball in the basket - Foye with bad shooting percentages but a nice number of foul shots - Butler with beautiful shooting percentages, but no foul shots to speak of. Neither can really guard the other - Foye is too short to bother Butler, Foye posesses enough quickness to make Butler struggle to guard him. Expect to see buckets be rained from this position.
SF: Ryan Gomes v Julian Wright
Advantage: Wolves
Gomes is a nice solid player who would make a great sixth best player on a good team. In Minnesota, he's required to be their second or third option, and he's just not efficient enough to fill that role. He'll knock down a few shots, make some plays, and be pretty solid. Right now, I rank his consistent mediocre production as a little higher than what Julian gives us, since he's so up and down.
PF: Kevin Love v David West
Advantage: Hornets
Kevin Love doesn't get the shots, or have a good enough handle to be a threat at the elbow like David West is, but Love is efficient, energetic, a solid passer, and is a rebounding monster. Love is producing a 21.1% rebound rate, which is fourth in the league. To give you an idea how good that is, Tyson Chandler has never posted a similar number, his best being 06-07 when he rebounded at a 20.7% rate. Love will work hard, and though West will score on him, Love's production will keep this from being a run away in the Hornets favor, no matter how much West has picked up his rebounding lately.
C: Jason Collins v Tyson Chandler
Advantage: Hornets
Tyson Chandler on a gimpy ankle will still outproduce and out-defend Jason Collins. Collins has managed to produce less in his career than almost anyone else, and his defense is only average at best.
Bench
Advantage: Timberwolves
The Wolves bench consists of Mike Miller, The Rhino Craig Smith, Rodney Carney, Kevin Ollie and Brian Cardinal. Miller and Smith are nice, Carney is so-so, and the other two are warm bodies. Miller alone makes this bench better than ours - and since Smith is a wide-bodied yet very effective short big man, this bench blows ours away.
Enjoy the game. Preferably go do some laundry during the first 4-5 minutes of the second quarter to keep your enjoyment at a high level.
13 exceptional comments post your own
Dariusz Ejkiewicz
03/18/09 11:29 AM
I would ban anyone who will not know who's on tonights banner :)
www.ejkiewicz.com #1
Dejan16
03/18/09 11:39 AM
Byron is actually going to start mo pete tonight Ryan, atleast thats what I read, and hes hoping peja will be back for fridays game, peja said hes feeling a whole lot better.
#2
Dejan16
03/18/09 11:39 AM
Mo instead of Juju
#3
Ryan Schwan
03/18/09 11:54 AM
That's a good move by Byron Scott. I'd tie Mo Peterson and Ryan Gomes. That is, if Mo doesn't have too much rust on his game.
www.hornets247.com #4
emir
03/18/09 12:01 PM
yeah mo pete brings peja's presence to the floor which helps make our offense run
juju is good but our offense relies to much on spreading the floor and he just can't give us that
#5
Andrea
03/18/09 12:51 PM
ZO!!!!
I like the idea of starting Mo over JuJu. We're still too reliant on 3 for my liking, but you are what you are.
I was reading what BigIndian15 said about how when our second unit comes in, maybe we should play a more uptempo style for the 4-5 minutes that they're out there. I'd love it if we could just go Phoenix Suns 7 seconds or less style during that short span but I doubt it'll happen or that anything will change.
I thought Chris Paul made a pretty good point when he was on Jim Rome's show yesterday that applies to our bench more than any other bench in the league IMO. He said that if you're coming off the bench, it's your job to bring energy and be effective while you're out there. I hope he told that to our bench because he pretty much is saying you have to make stuff happen because you're only getting limited time
#6
Caleb462
03/18/09 01:54 PM
I've wondered for a while whether or not an uptempo style might suit the bench better. They are so inept in the halfcourt... way too often we see a forced jumpshot with the shot clock running down or a hapless drive that results in a blocked shot or a lost ball. Running and gunning and trying to avoid set defenses could *potentially* yield more points. That said... the bench's defense also needs a lot of help. They were offensively inept last year too, but they could force the opposition into being offensively inept as well so it didn't matter as much. Playing the other team into a stalemate sounds so much better than the 5-10 point runs we generally give in the 2nd quarter these days.
neworleansbasketball.blogspot.com #7
Mikey
03/18/09 02:15 PM
Ryan, if you remember back to last offseason, I suggested that we sign Ryan Gomes, manily because I thought we had no shot at James Posey. Gomes would be a terriffic 6th man. He's picked up his three point shooting, he can get to the basket, and his defense has always been solid. In hindsight, I'd probably still take Gomes over Posey if nothing else than for the fact that we could've gotten him for less than a full MLE, and without the 4th year on his deal. That would have helped us keep this thing together longer, but none of that happened. Perhaps I should mention that I'm really dreading the offseason, or maybe I shouldn't.
#8
MonstaBee
03/18/09 02:26 PM
Did anyone notice that the Rockets bench game into the game and ran 3 or 4 set plays in a row? Adleman seems to do a good job of having the guard pass to a wing, and cut off a pick from the post to the basket. Then the next time down the floor, a different player is the cutter...in other words, they ran an offense with their bench that allowed them to make quick cuts and get into a rhythm or take easy shots. No standing around waiting for a the defenders to back off.
How come our bench comes in and we have 4 guys standing still on the perimeter? I would love to see Juju come in to night, grab the ball from the PG at the top of the key, pass it to Posey on the wing where he is a threat to shoot the 3-ball, have Kiwi come up and set a hard pick a the post for JuJu(because he has been watching TC do it right), Juju fake one way and run as hard as he can to the post, get the quick no look pass from Posey and dunkaroo (actually make it though)!
#9
Niall Doherty
03/18/09 04:17 PM
I'm becoming more and more convinced that our bench isn't that bad; they're just not well coached. This is largely just a theory at the moment, but consider the following points and feel free to agree/disagree:
- We all considered Daniels to be a huge upgrade over Mike James, but now it seems AD was no upgrade at all. Did Daniels suddenly start sucking or were our expectations too high for him?
- Brandon Bass was seen as a lost cause when he was with the Hornets, but he suddenly became a valuable contributor off the bench in Dallas. Was his talent wasted here in New Orleans, or did he need to change of scenery before he could break out?
- Players who succeed with the Hornets are good at one of two things: a) creating their own shot, or b) defense. Note that those two things have very little to do with coaching. The only player who might be an exception to this is Peja, but he feasts on Chris Paul's ability to get in the lane and draw defenders.
It seems to me that we have a lot of players whose strengths are not maximized by Byron Scott's system. These guys are NBA basketball players. They all have ability. They just need to be utilized correctly.
www.ndoherty.com #10
commentcava
03/18/09 04:17 PM
Interesting bit by Hollinger over at ESPN. He ranks us third in terms of starting five and because of that we're likely to go far in the playoffs despite our terrible bench. I'm not sure I agree with his overall logic though. Since when is depth a bad thing? Also, our bench hardly plays as it is, and we still manage to lose against teams that do play theirs.
"3. New Orleans: The Hornets' starters rank sixth in the league in plus/minus. The subs rank 18th. That is one of the largest disparities in the league, and anyone who has seen a Hornets game can verify why: Once Chris Paul checks out, this team struggles mightily at the offensive end.
Backup point guard and backup center have been glaring, season-long weaknesses, with Antonio Daniels, Sean Marks and Hilton Armstrong all having severely negative plus/minus marks. Fortunately for New Orleans, that trio is likely to see far less floor time in a playoff series, making the Hornets a real threat to advance from any position in the West's top seven."
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-090318
#11
bigindian15
03/18/09 04:18 PM
I'm not sure our bench can pull off SSOL, even for only 5 minutes. That requires more athleticism and an incredible point guard. Our starters would probably beast it up, but Byron may have a heart attack...
I feel like putting Butler on the bench would solve a LOT of the bench problems, actually. Butler has branched out his offensive game this season, he plays with a lot of energy, and Mo Pete would be able to space the floor just as well with the starters. Mo can't provide the same things with the second unit as Sual, so it seems like, if Sual kept up his production on the bench, it would work really well. He would still finish games, so his minutes wouldn't be cut too much, he would just be a little shot to the bench
#12
emir
03/18/09 04:37 PM
when peja comes back i think we should have him play more with the second unitand my reason for this is because of how well he played when west and paul where injured
it just seems like he can do much more but he is quiet and soft to take control
#13