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The Hornets showed plenty of energy and fight tonight, pushing the pace, keeping their hands active on D and holding their own on the boards until the final minutes. Unfortunately, tonight's visitors, the Utah Jazz, are quite good at basketball and can win despite excessive turnovers and lousy transition defense.

Still, an enjoyable evening of effort from the Hornets. 98-90 the final score.

Utah's execution down the stretch

They kept it simple in the final two minutes, running the pick and roll with Williams and Boozer on three consecutive trips. Boozer got to the line the first time, then made a nifty jump-hook over West and Okafor the second time. Not necessarily easy points you might say, but those two efforts set up the back-breaker which was Andrei Kirilenko's cut and throw down from the weak side on the third trip. West and Posey were so concerned about another pick and roll that they completely forgot about AK47.

Darren Collison vs. Deron Williams

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Back from the All-Star break, and the Hornets have a tough task to start the home stretch. The Utah Jazz are in town, ready to cause trouble at 7 Central.

The 33-19 Jazz have been playing extremely well of late, with the lone loss in their last eleven games coming against the Lakers last week. In those last ten wins, they've out-scored opponents by an average of 11.1 points. Last night in Houston they showed no signs of an All-Star hangover, as Mehmet Okur scored 21 points and Deron Williams managed 17 points and 15 assists in a 104-95 Jazz win.

Tonight marks the second of four meetings between the Jazz and Hornets this season. The Hornets came away with a rare win in Utah back on January 4th thanks in large part to 30 points from Devin Brown. In today's Salt Lake Tribune, Deron Williams is quoted as saying "We owe them a game."

Morris Peterson will be starting at 2-guard tonight for the Hornets, with Marcus Thornton again coming off the bench in his second game back from injury. Jim Eichenhofer also reports that Peja Stojakovic will be sporting a new look.

Numbers:

Pace: Jazz 95.5 (13th), Hornets 94.5 (19th)
Offensive Efficiency: Jazz 106.6 (9th), Hornets 104.9 (13th)
Defensive Efficiency: Jazz 102.2 (11th), Hornets 105.5 (20th)

Linkage:

• Earlier on the blog: Thoughts on JuJu's Twitter trade talk | Rookie Report: Inside the Numbers
  
• Journals: Check out all the entries to our Journal Contest (ends at 7 Central this eve)
• Rival bloggers: Salt City Hoops (THN) | SLC Dunk | True Blue Jazz

(Many thanks to Dariusz for today's banner featuring Darren Collison. Be sure to check out more of Dariusz's designs in our Wallpapers vault.)

That game was bundles of fun. The Hornets were getting pushed around early and giving up easy baskets, but played some great defense beyond the first quarter and ran the ball about as well as I've seen all season. Devin Brown had himself a career night and Chris Paul came up clutch to give the Hornets just their third road win of the season, and their first in Utah in almost four years.

91-87 the final score (box).

Chris Paul vs. Deron Williams

We'll get this out of the way first. Deron had a much steadier than Chris game tonight, finishing with 17 points (6-11 FGs) and 11 assists. He landed hard after making a layup midway through the fourth and hurt his right arm. He didn't make much noise after that.

Chris struggled a whole lot through the first three quarters, only getting his first field goal with 2:19 left in the third. He was money down the stretch though, repeatedly using a high pick to shed Williams and then blowing right by Millsap for layups. CP finished with 12 points (5-15 FGs) and 9 assists.

Perhaps the biggest play of the game was Paul's steal with 45 seconds left and the Hornets ahead 86-82. David West had just turned it over trying to kick it out of the post, and Williams led the break with Andrei Kirilenko streaking and only Chris between them. Somehow CP contorted around and got a hand on the bounce pass, making up for a lazy missed three not a minute earlier. He then came down, took another high screen and left Millsap in the dust. Game over.

Emeka Okafor

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The Hornets are back on the road, and they've got a tough test tonight in Utah facing the 18-15 Jazz.

The Hornets have gone 2-8 against Utah the past three seasons, and haven't won in Salt Lake since February 25, 2006, which was Chris Paul's rookie season. Back then, Devin Brown was the starting 2-guard for the Jazz.

This seems to be a good time to play Utah though, since they've lost four of six overall. On Saturday they hosted a Nuggets team without Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups but still managed to lose, 95-105. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer have been steady of late for the Jazz, but most of their teammates seem to be slumping. Head coach Jerry Sloan has been rolling with Ronnie Price and rookie Wesley Matthews in recent fourth quarters.

The Hornets have won two straight, but have yet to beat a winning team on the road this season. The Jazz are 12-5 this season at EnergySolutions Arena.

Game tips at 8 p.m. Central.

Linkage:

• Lagniappe: Year in review, CP's wheels and a grade for the Hornets' first 30
  
• Rival bloggers: Salt City Hoops | SLC Dunk | True Blue Jazz
  

(Many thanks to Dariusz for the banner, today featuring the legendary Pistol Pete Maravich. Be sure to check out more of Dariusz's designs in our Wallpapers vault.)

About the only good thing I could say about the game tonight was that they at least showed some signs of life in the third.  The Jazz offense was on target, and the Hornets didn't once manage to keep them from scoring more than 20 in a quarter.  That's not going to get it done.  Not even close.

There will be some who will only see the boxscore and think that the starters were pretty solid - hell, even Julian got a ton of other stats even if he missed four shots, but that's not the case.  Take a quick look at the turnover column for the starting five, and you see the beginning of the Hornets problems.

Then look at their defense, and you see the end of them.  The Jazz are a premier team at exposing soft interior defense since they launch cuts through the middle on every play.  If the big men aren't willing to body up, rotate, and contest shots, it's all over at that point.  Armstrong rarely left Okur, West usually left late, and Marks just isn't fast enough.

The thing that probably stuck with me the most throughout the game, however, was the first quarter.  The Hornets played very strong defense through the first five posessions, giving up only one good look.  Ronnie Brewer, however, tossed in some really tough shots anyways, and the Hornets rotations came slower, the focus was softer, and the Jazz got more open shots - and knocked them down.  It was over then, no matter what happened the rest of the way.

Paul wanted the game bad, and did what he could on both ends of the floor.  The rest of the guys?  I can't say the same.