First Quarter Notes

• Starting lineup for New Orleans: no DX, no TC
  
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• "See, Chris Paul's the master. You can never speed Chris Paul up, and you can never slow him down."
• Melvin Ely and Hilton Armstrong are force fed plenty of touches. Both visit the line a couple times and make some strong forays to the hoop. Granted, these strong forays are against JaVale McGee and friends.
  
• Seen in the audience: Thierry Henry and Ricky Rubio
• James Posey enters the game around 3:00 and promptly floors Etan Thomas. Chris Paul runs away with the ball, hoping nobody noticed that a 260 pound man was just leveled.
• Armstrong and Paul run the pick and roll for the first time, and Paul blows his second wide open layup of the game. Two turnovers so far also.
• Matt Winer- "James Posey has got to be the most sought after 9 point scorer in NBA history." Fair enough. Well Robert Horry, maybe. And that guy only played offense.
• 2 3's for Posey.

2nd Quarter Notes

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• Posey draws a charge. Didn't see nearly enough of that last year.
• Rasual Butler, very impressive off the bench. A nifty stop and go move to the hoop, and then a well-timed rejection of a fast break layup. Then he knocks down the corner three.
• Mike James, meanwhile, has been all flash and no substance. A flashy move here and a flashy move there, but three or four badly missed shot attempts. If this keeps up... a Brown/Butler/Wright/Posey second unit?
  
• Still haven't seen Brown play the point guard yet, though.
• What... just... happened... ??? Hilton Armstrong takes the rebound, loses a defender by dribbling behind his back, goes coast to coast, fakes going up for a layup, then assists Rasual Butler for a layup.
  
• My mind is officially blown.
• Okay. Now, a left handed, no-look, reverse layup by Ryan Bowen.
• !#$@%!$#!#$!#$^!#^#$@^#@$^
• Back to regularly scheduled programming: Ryan Bowen goes flying into the audience chasing a loose ball.

Halftime

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• Cool halftime feature on CP. Baby C.J. and Chris Paul above.
  

3rd Quarter

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• Nice shoes.
• Melvin Ely lays a brutal hip check on Antonio Daniels, sending him flying. Daniels takes it in stride.
• Hilton Armstrong finishes strong. Then next play, he gets a dunk rejected by Antonio Daniels. /Sighs disgustedly...
• Mike James continues his Pargo-esque fire-away philosophy. I can't imagine Byron Scott is too pleased with it.
• Mo-Pete loses his shoe on the offensive end. He starts to scramble back on D, before thinking better of it, and avoids the defensive sequence altogether.
• Overall, a very lazy third quarter. Ely, surprisingly, has 17 points to lead New Orleans.

4th Quarter

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• As James Posey knocks down his third three, I notice that he doesn't have a teal mouthpiece! It's red! No!!!
• Mike James with a beautiful one hand floater and one through the lane. Clearly taking some lessons from CP3.
• Chris Paul singlehandedly takes down 6'11" Andray Blatche on the fast break. Not sure what Paul is still doing in the game. But that was entertaining.
• Devin Brown with the one hand breakaway slam. Haven't seen much Rasual Butler this quarter, if at all.
  
• Barcelonans really like The Wave.
• Courtney Sims finally comes in, with 2:45 left. Seems like an odd time to put in a player you need to evaluate...
• Devin Brown nearly completes the most unbelievable play in Hornets history!!! Well, maybe not, but it was awesome. Palms the ball in a 360 motion while hanging mid air.
• If nothing else, Courtney Sims is big. He "looks" like an NBA player. Too bad Byron didn't put him in earlier and give him more minutes.
  
• Courtney Sims fakes out a defender, and hits an off balance 15 footer. Not bad at all.

And that's that. Based on the game, I'd say Mike James has the upper hand for the backup role, Sims will be cut as soon as possible (justified or not), Ely may have a much better year than last, and Hilton doesn't look too improved. Sadly, no Julian (ankle) or Jared Jordan.