At The Hive

Evaluating the D, 10 Games In

2008-11-20T20:33:27Z

The Hornets played the 7th best defense in the league last year, acquired defensive wizards James Posey, and emitted various hoo-ha's about not trying to acquire "non-defense playing" guys like J.R. Smith. Of course, that made us all feel good about our defensive prospects for '08-'09. Posey makes us tough! Let's go out and D up like the Celtics! Woo!

Yeah. Hasn't happened.

	2007-2008	November 2008
Defensive Efficiency	105.7 (7th)	107.1 (21st)
eFG% Allowed	50.1% (16th)	51.2% (26th)
FT/FG Allowed	18.4% (1st)	24.8% (17th)
DREB%	75.4% (3rd)	75.3% (2nd)
TO Rate Allowed	13.5% (12th)	14.9% (7th)

The defensive efficiency has has taken a dip for two major reasons: we're starting to foul too much and we're allowing opposing teams to light us up from the field. Over a one or two game stretch, it might not be too worrisome. But over a 10 game period, these increases are indicative of a larger problem.

Rising allowed eFG% and allowed FT are generally caused by the same issue- leaving opponents open. Defenders must either let open players shoot the ball or foul them to prevent them from shooting the ball. The Hornets have done that time and time again, regardless of the quality of their opposition. Why are so many opposing players wide open?

Poor penetration defense and poor perimeter rotations. Those two things were on prominent display versus Sacramento. Udrih, Salmons, Greene, you name it, were driving to the rim at will. I decided to mess around with some video software and highlight a couple examples from the Kings game. This is my first time doing any video, so sorry about the choppiness in some parts.

Watching those two plays in real speed, it's difficult to tell what went wrong. On the first one, it almost looks like it might be Peja's fault- why didn't he rotate to cover the ball? Only when you slow it down and watch West immaturely go for the steal does it become obvious. Ditto on the second play. At game speed, it looks like good passing from Sacramento just created chaos in the Hornets' D. In actuality, Chris Paul randomly decided to follow the ball (totally unnecessarily) and leave his man. I included these two plays because they were microcosms of our defense in general. If there's one thing to take away, it's this: our defense is struggling because of small, minute, mistakes. These are rookie mistakes. These are things you see defensively undisciplined teams do. Gambling. Ball watching.

Above all, these are coaching downfalls. A good coach sees Paul do that and bangs it into his head that he needs to stay at home. There's nothing he can do rotating underneath the hoop that Tyson Chandler and David West can't already take care of. A good coach sees West try for that steal and admonishes him for playing defense with his hands instead of his feet. These subtle mistakes manifest themselves in seemingly overarching and unsolvable issues- ridiculously high allowed field goal percentages, high rates of fouls. Until the coaching staff and the players recognize that good defense starts at the smallest of scales, this team will continue to struggle.

Game 10: Hive Live

2008-11-20T14:15:49Z

Sacramento 108 (5-8) | New Orleans 96 (5-5)

Ugly. That's a pretty good word for it.

Tonight the Kevin Martin-less Kings outplayed a healthy Hornets squad, who wasted a 20 PT, 15 AST, 4 STL performance from Chris Paul. Without Kevin Martin. Kevin Martin did not play. Oof.

Actually, outplayed isn't really the best word for it. The team stats were almost identical in every category with one solitary exception: 3 pointers. New Orleans dropped a horrific 2 out of 13 from beyond the arc, while Sacramento made a merely average 7 of 19. But last night, average was enough. And that's really the difference when it comes down to it.

Ok, so that's not really the whole story. In all honesty, we could have won this game. Keep in mind that we did outscore them in the first half without a single trey. So, a victory was imminent despite the poor percentage from deep if only a few other things had happened:

A. David West had pulled down more than 1 (ONE!) rebound and

B. John Salmons hadn't beat Rasual Butler off the dribble on every possession, ending the game with 29 PTs after going 13 of 18 from the field.

Seriously, Byron? You're not going to try a different defensive scheme when a mediocre 2 drops 30 points on you? Were you really that mad at Morris that he truly deserved 0 (ZERO!) minutes?

It's doubly frustrating that we lost this game considering that we could have jumped Houston in the divisional standings after they dropped a game without the services of any of their big 3.

Regardless, I'm not pressing the panic button yet. Remember that this Hornets squad dropped a game to Sacramento at the end of last season in a crucial quest to land atop the Western Conference standings. We missed that 1 seed by a single game.

It's still very early in a long season of 82 games. And though it does seem a little late to still be finding our sea legs, dropping to .500 is not devastating after only 10 games (though my buddy Curry pointed out that we haven't been at or below .500 since before last season).

We have a back-to-back against the Seattle Sloppy Seconds this weekend. If we can't close out those 2 games, then I'll cry "PANIC"... but not a second sooner.

***

Couple of observations before I leave you:

Devin Brown played pretty well, chiming in with 13 PTs, 2 ASTs, 1 STL, and 3 REB (all offensive, actually). He seems serviceable for the time being over Mike "I'm not a pure point guard, I'm a scoring point guard" James. But we may need someone who can at least sort of run an offense behind CP. Ball handling is nice and all, but let's get some other people involved.
Pretty cool sequence happened in the third that brought the score back to a tie. I'll just quote the game thread to make things easier: "Paul steal, Butler dunk, West steal, West dunk, Chandler block, Peja three. Right back in it." Ah, if only.
At one point in the third, CP got doubled up near the Sacramento bench. But "doubled up" actually doesn't do the play justice, as Reggie Theus (the Sacramento coach) was on the sideline and practically yelling in CP's face. So, to recap, Chris was cut off from the court by 2 players and 1 coach. How is this not some kind of foul against the King's bench?
I repeatedly wrote in my notebook that Armstrong doesn't know how to rebound. His 4 rebounds on the night came mostly away from the paint (or after Sacramento had begun transitioning). Boxing out is not his strong suit. Doesn't even own a suit like that as far as I can tell.
It got all "Revenge of Bobby Jackson" out there towards the end of the game. Despite being quiet all night, B. Jax sunk 5 points on two impossible shots late in fourth that, even though we were all in denial, were pretty much the nail(s) in the coffin.
In the continuing tradition of doing mindless games and contests during every timeout in an effort to keep the fans' attention, the Hornets have implemented a new contest: 77 seconds with 7up. Basically, at the start of the third quarter, they keep track of the amount of points scored for 77 seconds which then turns into prizes of 7up for one lucky fan (provided the team scores). It's dumb, but that's not the point. The point is that when the 77 second game was played last night, the Hornets put up a total of 2 (TWO!) points. After this happened, our incredibly annoying in-game promotion announcer lady declared that 2 points in 77 seconds was "not too bad." Hey Brittney, guess what? That pace comes to slightly less than 75 points a game. And, in the words of Sir Charles, "that's TORRRABLLLE."
I've written in the past about my befuddlement with fans who wear any old jersey to Hornets games based, presumably, on the fact that sporting events require fans to wear jerseys of any kind. As such, there is rarely a shortage of Deuce McCallister, Drew Brees, or Reggie Bush jerseys littering the stands during home games. Hell, even LSU jerseys have been known to make appearances. It's a little strange, but at least they're behind their city, right? And opposing fans are no exception either; at last year's Pistons game, I saw a guy in a Red Wings jersey. Honest. Why am I telling you this? Because last night I saw a guy wearing a... wait for it... Washington Redskins jersey... Jason Campbell's to be precise. Now, google told me that DC is roughly 2,700 miles from Sacramento and 1,000 miles from New Orleans, so I ask you, the fans of the wide world of sports... WTF?!

Composed to: Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures

Photo courtesy of espn.com

Really Guys? Really?

2008-11-20T07:54:37Z

Lee will have the full recap in the morning, and I should have a moving picture/video/movie/film (be excited!) sort of thingy up as well. Because pictures and words can't begin to describe the depths of our ineptitude. For now, a few half-baked bullets:

What the @#%? is the deal with the substitution patterns? Chris Paul has 15/13 and is playing awesome basketball in the 3rd. Then Byron sits him until 6 minutes left in the 4th as the Hornets proceed to lose the lead in pathetic fashion.
David West needs to learn how to pass out of the double. On that last forced shot attempt, he had Chris Paul, Peja, and Posey more open than a 7/11 at 2 p.m.
Posey was pretty bad. But one bad game in every 10 is pretty good right?
Looks like Devin's got this backup thing in the bag.
David West went 32 minutes without getting a rebound.
Don't lie- you want to see Byron Scott put Sean Marks in.
Byron can't expect to sit Peja all second half and then have him come in cold and drill triples for the last 2 minutes. You could hear every person in the arena groan when Devin Brown had that wide open look at three. You think Peja misses that?

Behind Enemy Lines: Sacramento Kings

2008-11-19T23:13:29Z

The Sac Kings visit New Orleans tonight. As some of you may remember, Sacramento was the site of a beatdown of epic proportions some months prior, the beater being the Kings, and the beatee being the Hornets. That the Hornets not reprise their beatee role, let us all wish. Anyway, Ziller of Sactown Royalty was nice enough to answer a few questions on very short notice.

At the Hive: How many seasons do you expect it will take the Kings to challenge for a playoff spot again? Just looking ahead at the '09 and '10 free agent classes, where would you start the rebuilding process as GM?

Sactown Royalty: It will take the Kings 15 years to earn another playoff spot, but only two years to challenge for one. I'm optimistic that way. I think the team needs to be drafting for overall talent at this point. Depending on how '09 and '10 shake in the trade market, the Kings can adjust from there. I'd rather the team draft Blake Griffin or B.J. Mullens to create a logjam of bigs than pick a guard with high bust potential just because they are targeting a top PG in the trade market. The team's overall talent level needs a boost.

@tH: PER-wise, Jason Thompson has been pretty impressive. What have you liked and disliked about his game thus far?

SR: Thompson has been pretty amazing, given expectations. I think he rushes his jumper a little bit, fouls too much right now going for offensive rebounds, and sometimes takes one dribble too many in the paint. But those are really just quibbles -- he has exceeded all rational expectations as of today.

@th: With the departure of Ron Artest, Kevin Martin has gotten the chance to be "the man" in Sacramento. Up till his recent injury, how would you assess his transition into his new role?

SR: We barely saw Martin play before his ankle got crunched, so we're TBD right now. That said, he's perfect as a top scorer getting 20 FGAs/game. We saw that in the first two weeks, and we'll see it again beginning next week.

Let's get some revenge for Bobby Brown!

More Random Musing

2008-11-18T09:34:10Z

The season is barely a half month old. It's so early, the Knicks are 5th in the East, and the Kings are in the West playoff picture. Marvin Williams leads the league in three point shooting, and Tony Parker is 3rd in scoring. Things are going to even out; there's a long way to go.

I've always believed that the Hornets would win a championship. A month into Chris Paul's career, I was sure of it. The kid was just too incredible; surround him with even marginally above average talent, and the Hornets would surely win it all, I thought. The past couple years did nothing to change my perception. As you might imagine, they probably strengthened that notion. The surrounding cast was falling into place, the big name free agent was snatched from eager suitors, and the guy that had inspired all that hope in the first place was unthinkably better than he was on draft night. When the Spurs eliminated the Hornets last year, it seemed a beginning far more than an end.

This summer, one of my friends asked me something interesting. Had I ever wondered if maybe the Hornets don't ever win a championship? If the Lakers' ascendence to power just happens to coincide with and supersede the Hornets' rise? It seems silly, but I'd never really thought of it in terms of other teams. It was definitely a plausible idea; the regular season was just so far off at the time, I didn't give it much thought.

Then Wednesday night happened. Sure, New Orleans came back. Sure, Chris Paul was Chris Paul. But anybody watching that game could've easily told you who the better team was. Teams don't build 20+ point leads and sustain them for multiple quarters by fluke. Niall's post-game comment sort of put into words an idea I'd been slowly coming to terms with: "Phil Jackson has put together a well-oiled machine. And the most depressing thing is, I'm not sure what we can do to get to that level and compete with them this season. Unless something drastic happens, there's no way I can see us beating them in a 7-game series. It's mid-November and I'm pretty sure I already know how the season will end."

I felt that exact same sense of disappointment. If they're so much better than us now, then why should we believe that New Orleans will magically make up that gap in a handful of months?

I slept on that idea for a bit. People enjoy sports because sports are random. Every game involves a better team and a worse team. Sports are fun because the better team will not win every time. The Lakers are clearly the better team. Sports are about taking the hand you're dealt, and maximizing value. The Lakers surely have the better hand. But there's a reason a player like LeBron James can almost singlehandedly topple a vastly superior team like the Detroit Pistons. The sport of basketball in general is more conducive to single player dominance than any other team game.

For me, it all comes back to what gave me so much hope to start with- Chris Paul. Virtually every major statistic worth its salt agrees on one thing: there's LeBron James and Chris Paul, and then there's the rest of the league. Those are the two best players in the game. If LBJ can lift a decidedly mediocre team past a perennial title contender, why can not Chris Paul lead a very good team past a title contender?

The Lakers are the better team, no question. But in a sport as individual centric as basketball, and with the Hornets in possession of arguably the best player in the entire league, I'm not ready to write this team off.

Changes Afoot?

2008-11-16T08:00:08Z

To say the Hornets have stumbled out of the gates is something of an understatement. We've been handled by the Hawks, Lakers, and Rockets thus far. It's a long season, and things will surely start to even out a little as we get into December and January. That said, this team could use a little shake up. Some thoughts on our problems and some potential solutions:

Peja Stojakovic

He's one of the game's best pure shooters, nobody denies that. His biggest challenge is facing off against physical opponents. We've seen tough defenders throw him off time and time again- Bruce Bowen blasted him to smithereens in the playoffs last year, and Ron Artest did it again on Saturday. All that leads me to postulate: why not start James Posey against the more physical perimeter defenders?

Posey and Peja actually have comparable three point shooting figures. The difference is that Posey is a lot more physical in getting space to shoot his threes. Off the ball, he will physically shove off defenders to make space for himself and get open. One of Peja's biggest problems is that if he doesn't get going early on, he likely won't be involved in the game. Shut him down in the 1st quarter, and you've virtually taken him out of the remaining 3 quarters. Having him come off the bench against the Artests of the world would be one way to circumvent that. As a secondary advantage, the Hornets would also be able to put Posey on the other team's best player from the opening whistle. On the surface, this seems like it could work.

The Bench

I'm not gonna lie, I love the new look of the bench. I was a staunch Mike James supporter, but the athleticism of a Brown/Butler/Wright/Posey combination has me drooling. That said, this bunch simply can not play offense. They just can't. It's a bunch of 6'7" dudes hoisting 20 footers (and one 6'11" guy looking totally lost).

The one missing piece is penetration. You can have all the shooters in the world, but unless somebody can collapse the defense in the middle, those shooters will never get clean looks. Byron Scott has decided to go with Devin Brown as the primary penetrator. Based on his performance so far, that will not work. Brown is good at getting to the hoop when he catches a pass and is allowed to take a quick first step past his defender. When he has to dribble the ball up, initiate the offense, and then blow by his defender, it's a totally different story. On top of that, he has a pretty polished off the ball game. By making him the primary ball handler, that aspect of his game is diminished.

Making Posey a point forward isn't the answer either. It worked against Portland because they don't have any terrific on the ball defenders. Posey as the primary ball handler would be suicide versus a Marion or a Kirilenko. My solution would be letting Julian handle the ball. Byron Scott attracted a lot of attention in the offseason by professing his desire to groom Julian as CP3's backup. Why not try it out? It can't end much worse than the status quo. Wright is certainly more likely to beat a defender off the dribble than is Devin Brown.

The CCC

Run it. Run it often. Burning Yao/Landry/Hayes with it should give us the confidence to try it against anyone. It was conspicuously missing in the first few games, but the Hornets have to come back to the CCC.

David West

Any Hornet observer could have told you all about David West's most annoying flaw last season: catching an open pass, half pump faking, and neither committing fully to the drive or the shot. West seemed to conquer that flaw as the season wore on, and it was nonexistent in the playoffs. Then something happened in the off season, and it's gotten worse than ever. At least 4-5 times a game now, he'll pass on a totally wide open shot and do nothing with the play. Shoot it! Please shoot it!

I really, really hope someone on the Hornets' staff or roster is aware of this. All the other things on this list are pretty much random speculation on my part. But this is one the Hornets have to be aware of... right? Shoot the ball, David West!

Game 9: Hive Five

2008-11-16T04:37:47Z

Well, chalk up another one in the loss column. The Hornets are now 3-3 against .500+ teams. You can put all the lipstick you want on this pig, but the Hornets don't look like an elite basketball team.

Houston has an elite defense, no doubt about it. It's them and Boston defensively as far as I'm concerned. Let's start with Chris Paul: absolutely destroyed to the tune of 2-10. I know he didn't have the jumper working. But Houston totally denied his routine floaters. One thing I'm sure everyone noticed: he often drove to the lane only to U-turn underneath the hoop and come back out. Against 28 out of 30 teams in the league, that's a converted floater. Against Houston, it's 15 seconds lost off the shot clock. The factors real quick before looking at the Rocket D versus other Hornets:

	Pace	Eff	eFG	FT/FG	OREB%	TOr
New Orleans	81.0	101.2	42.8%	22.4	23.8	9.9
Houston		112.3	50.0%	37.9	26.5	17.3

1. eFG% ( X) When a team shoots 43% eFG from the floor, there's a strong likelihood that it was because of poor, unlucky shooting. That was not the case tonight. I counted maybe 5 open jumpers that did not drop (3 or so by Mr. West). Otherwise, every single shooter had a defender running at him full speed. More often, there were never even open shooters to begin with. Houston's best attribute defensively is that they do not allow clean looks at the hoop. Period.

2. OREB% ( X) One more time: what is wrong with Tyson Chandler? Does he have an injury we don't know about? Yao Ming is tall, but he isn't a spectacular rebounder by any stretch of the imagination. Chandler getting just 4 rebounds is... mind boggling. I really don't know what to say. It's becoming a recurring theme. David West and James Posey picked up the slack on the glass. But I can't even remember the last time TC did one of those patented tap outs.

3. FT/FG (X) Other than the suffocating defense, this game was lost at the free throw stripe. The Rockets converted 5 more free throws than the Hornets attempted. A lot of this had to do with the fact that the majority of New Orleans FGA came from the perimeter. There simply weren't enough non-Paul drives to the hoop. More on this later.

4. TOr (√) 3 turns from Paul but great job from everyone else. West only had a pair, and Devin Brown had a nice night with the steals. Also: Chuck Hayes has the funniest free throw stroke in the NBA. Think Tyson Chandler with one hand tied behind his back and multiple leg spasms.

5. Pace (81) Too slow. Way too slow. I know the Hornets like to play in the 89 range. But one of the things that makes New Orleans special is this: they excel at playing at multiple paces. They proved last year that they could run with the Suns and Warriors in the 100 pace range. They proved they could handle mid-90's pace with ease. Houston is a very, slow deliberate team. I would've loved to see the Hornets push the tempo on the Rockets if only for one reason: we know they can. We know they can have great success playing a fast brand of basketball. We don't know how the Rockets would respond. The Hornets are unique in that they can play multiple styles with ease; not using that to their own advantage cost them tonight.

And now, back to Houston's defense. The Hornets' most successful play was the CCC. Yao Ming simply couldn't stop it. That's why I was surprised to see Byron remove Tyson right after 3 or 4 successful connections. That's why I was even more surprised to see the Hornets not try it a single time after Tyson came back in. I love Byron as a coach, but I definitely found that a peculiar decision.

Peja was non-existent yet again. Not that I'm too surprised- we've seen physical defenders like Bowen throw him off his game with ease. Mo was held in check too. Not a lot of off the ball movement in general, and that took its toll on Chris Paul as well.

The second unit looked pretty abysmal offensively. Their biggest problem is not having a penetrator. As NBR noted in the game thread, D. Brown looks pretty good when playing off the ball. If Byron is using him to set up plays, then he loses that aspect of his game. There's a lot of athleticism, some pretty good defense, but the offense all comes from 19, 20 foot, contested jumpers.Of course, that's never a good thing.

Dream Shake Preview

2008-11-15T23:02:00Z

Dream Shake Preview

No Behind Enemy Lines installment tonight, and it looks like no matchup preview from Ryan either. Check out Dream Shake's preview; it's pretty fair, I think.

Game 8: Hive Five

2008-11-15T07:23:42Z

We might be the only fanbase ever that says "eh" to a 17/9/0 turnover game.

Oh, and toss 6 rebounds and 4 steals in there too. The 20-10 streak finally came to an end tonight, but at least New Orleans got to tack on one more win. With Utah, Houston, and Los Angeles all losing, it was a pretty good night to be a Hornet fan. A look at the factors:

	Pace	Eff	eFG	FT/FG	OREB%	TOr
Portland	78.0	105.1	48.6%	21.7	19.4	12.8
New Orleans		111.5	47.2%	28.2	26.2	11.5

1. eFG% ( X) Take away Posey's huge contributions off the bench, and the Hornets really didn't shoot all that well. Paul went just 4-12, Peja went 1-5 from three, Tyson finished 1-5 total. Overall, the Hornets probably had far more open looks against L.A. than against Portland. Defensively, New Orleans did a great job on Brandon Roy. Devin Brown and Morris Peterson limited his ability to drive and forced him into taking tough jump shots. LMA had a nice stretch in the third, but he was held to a 7-16 night as well.

2. OREB% ( √) Not to complain too much after a win... but what's wrong with Mr. Chandler? Only 1 OREB tonight, and only 7 rebounds total. CP3, Peja, D. Brown, and Hilton all had Tyson's back though, picking up a couple OREB's apiece. Devin, in particular, was impressive on the glass. He took away a couple of boards from much taller opposition. More on Brown in the notes.

3. FT/FG (√) We've been surprisingly good at getting to the line this year. Tonight was no exception. Chris Paul led the charge with 9 freebies (all converted) and David West and Devin Brown both got 4 from the charity stripe (also all converted). On the flip side, Portland's starters only got 8 total free throws.

4. TOr (√) Two terrific ball control teams showed their strength at taking care of the rock. Chris Paul finished with a grand total of zero turnovers to complement his nine assists while primary ball-handler Roy finished with just one. The turnover issues continued for David West (4 turns) as he had a bad pass, and an offensive foul among other things. Now 10 turns in 2 games- this whole turnover issue is oddly remniscent of last year. DX struggled with turnovers pretty much all year until some time February/March-ish. So I'm not too worried. The thing I am worried about is that stupid hesitation thing he does. Either take the shot or drive strong. He's getting stuck in between far too often.

5. Pace (78) Yuck. This game was like an obese elephant wandering in quick sand. Both these teams love to play slow, but this was just way, way, way too slow. As Dean Oliver has suggested in the past, one strategy an underdog can use to win a game is to limit the number of total possessions. So the slow pace probably favored Portland a lot more, even though New Orleans is comfortable playing slow. Look forward to another slow game tomorrow versus Houston.

Overall, I was quite impressed with both LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden. I'll be quite stunned if Aldridge doesn't make an All-Star team in the next couple years at least. He has outstanding range and isn't afraid to mix it up in the paint and an traffic. I saw some Blazers fans were slightly peeved at LMA not getting respect, and understandably so. Dude's for real.

Nice to see David West play well tonight. His final line- 18 pts (7-14), 4 rebounds- doesn't seem all that impressive on its own, especially when you factor in the 4 turnovers. But I liked how Byron Scott specifically went to West every time LMA scored. It was a nice tit-for-tat sort of thing, and West consistently held up his end of the back and forth. Nice to see, after his last few subpar games.

The Devin Brown era officially began today. 2-7 isn't the greatest of starts. But Brown's length helped him do a ton of positive things defensively that Mike James simply couldn't. His pass:shot ratio was probably a bit higher than Byron would like. Then again, I'm sure Byron loved that Devin iced the game at the end with those free throws. Honestly, I'm really intrigued by a Brown-Butler-Wright-Posey-Generic Center That Probably Sucks lineup. Lots of height, lots of length, and plenty of shooting. If Boston can win with a total lack of ball-handlers in its second unit, I'm sure a Brown-led second unit could do fine.

Staying on the subject of the bench, how about Julian Wright? We finally got an opportunity to see him isolate on a couple plays. Last week, I was worried that Byron had banished Julian to the end of the bench. It seems more and more that he was simply working him back into the offense gradually. I can't wait until Wright and Brown are firing on all cylinders to complement Posey.

The last wrinkle Byron tossed in tonight was the 4th quarter offense. For something like a 5 minute stretch, the offense ran exclusively through David West and James Posey. Paul was on the floor but literally didn't touch the ball for entire possessions at a time. James Posey as a "point forward" might be more risky against strong defensive teams. But against a team like Portland- which doesn't have any premier ball pressurers- it worked out real well.

Houston tomorrow, let's hopefully get some early separation in the Southwest Division.