Hornets Fall Just Short of Another Impressive Win

From At The Hive’s Hornets-Heat recap:

I’d question Bower’s decision to play Marks so little (in fact, he and Emeka combined for just 24 minutes). But there’s actually good evidence that this was the right call. A glance at the rebounding figures suggests that both team were relatively even: 41 for the good guys, and 42 for the Wades. However, tonight was a prime instance of raw rebounding numbers lying a little bit. The Heat collected just 4 offensive boards, almost half their season average. On the other hand, the Hornets missed twenty (twenty!) more shots than Miami. The Heat had an opportunity to get their hands on twenty more loose boards than did the Hornets (defensively). So in an overall sense, the rebounding numbers balanced out. But if we look at the rate stats, the Hornets collected a whopping 88.2% of all Miami misses; the Heat collected just 77.6% of Hornets’ misses.

All of this is to say that the Hornets were doing fine on the glass with Okafor and Marks sitting. Now, whether that duo could have prevented the Miami lay-up line is another question altogether.