Ah, we could, njennings, but then we might win games. And who really would want that?

It was business as usual this evening - competency for three quarters giving way to the absurd comedy of errors that is crunch time Hornets basketball. It's still a bit jarring in contrast to the 2005-2011 Hornets, who, under the controls of Chris Paul, were far and away the most efficient clutch team in basketball. Tonight, New Orleans, over a ten minute stretch, turned a 9 point lead into an 8 point loss with ease, through poor shot selection and blown defensive assignments. Overall, it was an 18 point first half advantage they let slip.

The Anthony Davis dream lives on, but any semblance of fan spirit perished long ago.

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No gamethread quote tonight, though MrWayneKeller''s "Ugh. Sadness" likely captures the general sentiment quite well.

Rasheed Wallace's timeless "both teams played hard" was especially appropriate tonight. With Jarrett Jack already sidelined by an injury, Brandon Knight broke his nose, Carl Landry injured his left leg and did not return, and Jason Smith probably, probably suffered some sort of concussion-like symptoms. But through it all, New Orleans was able to pull out the loss at the end, against a team that will represent some of their primary competition in the draft lottery this June. Detroit now pulls two games clear of the Hornets, with the current "leaderboard" looking thusly:

Not too shabby at all. With Eric Gordon projected to return by at least some point in March, every loss the Hornets collect at this stage is important. With enough luck, they'll have piled up an insurmountable lead on Sacramento, Toronto, Detroit, and the rapidly improving New Jersey. Washington and Charlotte though will be there till the bitter end.

The game itself wasn't particularly noteworthy. Lots of mistakes, as we've become accustomed to (an 18% turnover rate for the Hornets). Lots of missed shots, as we've also become accustomed to (and that includes the shocking and rare sight of a multiple converted threes from Trevor Ariza). Greg Monroe was clearly the best player on the floor for either team, and while Ariza randomly matched him despite taking 8 of his 12 shots from 17 feet or further, the game wasn't as close as the final score line indicates. Detroit simply out-executed New Orleans in the last few minutes, and the result wasn't in question for at least the last 60 seconds.

As for the players themselves - Greivis Vasquez had another reasonably creative game. The turnovers (holy jump passing batman!) were up, but again, it's harsh to hold that against him. Al Aminu had, by the box score, a very solid game with 14 points on 9 shots and only (!) three turnovers. For the most part, he seemed just as out of control as normal, so I'm going to have to go back and watch the footage on him tomorrow. And the puzzling lack of minutes for the highly productive Gustavo Ayon continue. With Chris Kaman ostensibly back in the fold, this is not a very good sign at all. It's too early to draw parallels between Ayon and the Marcus Thornton situation, but for a team with very minimal talent and a ridiculously bleak outlook in the short term, Gustavo Ayon playing fewer minutes than any other active player (and Xavier Henry drawing a DNP) is just not acceptable.

Anyways, go Eli Manning.

(P.S. The answer to the Pregame Moment of Zen - P.J. Brown outrebounded the entire Pistons team (a team that had Ben Wallace on it) (!!!!). As far as I know, this was the 4th time in NBA history such a thing had ever happened, and the only time in the last 20 years or so. Moses did in '82, Sir Charles in '92, and Seikaly in '93).

A longish headline tonight, via BobbyO504 on the Twitter machine (hey, you there, follow me! I'm like the Pied Piper of cool). On a night like this, it's our only respite.

The Hornets were never going to defeat the Wade-James HEAT, not even after assembling a rather astonishing offensive first quarter. Miami gradually clamped down defensively, making sure to sprinkle in an assortment of plays for the highlight reel and was in full control of the game by the third quarter. At that point, all we had to amuse ourselves with was the pronunciation of Marco Belinelli by the HEAT broadcast team, Monty Williams denying us the sublime pleasures of Gustavo Ayon until it was too late.

Another night, another loss. Welcome to the new era of Hornets basketball.

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This season is the worst, y'all.

The Hornets avoided their first double digit losing streak since the pre-Chris Paul era by knocking off the Magic.

Some notes after the jump.

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That was BenDerDonDat's question during the game thread, one we unfortunately don't have an immediate answer for.

Teams like the Hornets aren't really supposed to exist at the professional level. A terrible basketball team, despite all of the hustle in the world, should get blown out. With regularity.

And it's not that this current side isn't terrible. I haven't seen a team make these types of turnovers, consistently, in a long while. The same players moving on screens, the same guys randomly choosing to pick up their dribble at half court, the same Aminu being freshly introduced to "dribbling" on a nightly basis. Assuming the first few teams the franchise put together get a pass, this is arguably the worst edition of the Hornets ever.

But for yet another game, the Hornets went up against a strong team (one that's supposedly the favorite to win the conference) and kept it close. It's an indictment of how awful Russell Westbrook was certainly, but it also fits within the larger Hornets schema - these guys won't get blown out often. They simply rebound too well (collecting 86% of all available defensive rebounds tonight) and fight too hard on defense (holding OKC to 3 points/100 poss. below their season average) to allow their utterly despicable offense to dictate final score lines.

It's what makes the Hornets a rather unique terrible team. After tonight, New Orleans pulls within a half game of the league's worst record, but the two teams ahead of them, Charlotte and Washington, boast efficiency differentials of negative 11.9 and 9.1. The Hornets are at negative 4.9, only the seventh worst mark in the league. Whether this portends good or bad things for the future is your call. Some game notes after the jump.

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The Hornets continued their confounding habit of not being able to win close games and dropped a winnable one to the defending champs 83-81. I'm gonna keep this short because I'm tired and I didn't watch this game with intentions of recapping tonight (read: I drank a few beers and yelled at the refs.). Completely random bullets below.

-Biggest positive of this game had to be the return to form for Carl Landry. 19 points on 13 shots and he was not settling for the jump shot. He out-muscled Shawn Marion and was too quick for Brendan Haywood, who simply hacked him after his first step. Late in the game the Mavericks, realizing they had no one who can guard Carl one-on-one (first time I've said that about a Hornet this year), elected to double, and the Hornets could not capitalize. Still, great to see this from Carl after his recent struggles. Keep it in the post, big guy.

-The other hero of the night for the Hornets is Emeka Okafor. 16 points and 17 boards to go with some great defense and smart play off the ball. Mek shot 7-13 and had a highlight-worthy block on a Dallas drive. Though many (myself included), will wish we had seen more of El Titan, the Hornets needed Landry and Okafor on the floor in this one as much as possible.

-Rough night for Jarrett Jack, who couldn't hit anything tonight. He finished 3-12 for 12 points with 6 assists and 2 TOs. Had a couple of late game miscues yet again, and couldn't quite muscle up a shot of an intentional FT miss that he actually executed quite well. I can't fault the guy for this game at all, as he is obviously playing his butt off the entire time he is on the floor. At one point he dove about 4 rows deep into the crowd after almost getting a steal from Jason Kidd. He is constantly vocal both on and off the court and clearly has assumed the leadership role on this team. The results are obviously not ideal, but it is certainly not for lack of effort..

- Marco Belinelli took 6 threes and missed them all. He was probably wide open on 5 of them. This is a guy whose one NBA skill is 3 point shooting. He still played 25 minutes. Not good.

-I really dislike Jason Terry. To my delight, he was way off all game, missing a ton of open looks. Of course, he hit some huge jumpers in transition and sank all of his free throws down the stretch to just keep the Hornets at bay.

-Not much Ayon, besides missing two free throws. Again, no complaints here because Landry really had it going.

-Quiet night from Jason Smith, who I assume will return to the bench if Landry gets back to playing like himself.

-Squeaky Johnson played 5 minutes and registered an assist and a steal, along with 2 missed 3s.

-Trevor Ariza took 15 shots to get 12 points but filled in 6 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, and a block. A very Trevor line. If he can be your 4th or 5th option on offense, he's a starter on a contender. Does a lot to help a team.

-Either by necessity or choice, Monty did not bite on matching the Mavs' small-ball lineup and at one point had a Vasquez-Summers-Aminu-Landry-Okafor ( I think Oak was at the 5, but let me know if I'm wrong) lineup, with everyone on the court being at least 6'6". The lineup wasn't particularly effective, but it was interesting.

-Summers had a dunk attempt absolutely erased by Yi Jianlian. I know this sounds like the most unlikely sequence in the world, but it was vicious.

-Does losing not suck as much to anyone else because of our lottery hopes this year? These last 3 losses all hurt. Bad. But, after a few minutes I find myself thinking about how we could potentially be one step closer to Anthony Davis and that ridiculous bat wing of a unibrow (pictured above in case you didn't figure that out). Anyways, the tank keeps a rolling.

-I'll close with a bizarre and potentially disturbing quote from Monty Williams on Eric Gordon courtesy of Bradley Handwerger of WWL TV:

I know some things. I’d love to tell you guys as much as I do know but I’ve got to hold onto it for another day or two and get some more information from the doctors. They’re still running tests on him but we’ll know more Monday or Tuesday for sure.

Yeah. I'm sure that won't freak anyone out at all. Yikes.

So said RyanCaz in the game thread, and so it was.

A late effort from njennings wins the day!

It was a hard fought game, a remarkable comeback effort, and ultimately, almost a winning effort. But, like most every game this season, it was not.

Lots of blame to go around, but lots of praise too. Let's start with the two instances where the Hornets had clear chances to put the game away. The first came after Jarrett Jack drew a late trip to the line and had a chance to put New Orleans up one. Of course, he failed to come through, and it's easy to blame him for that. The fact remains though that "clutch" is far more a function of luck than any innate ability to either star in late game situations or choke. Jack missed, and it will rightly weigh on him in the aftermath of defeat. But the team wouldn't have even been in that situation without his ability to get to the line.

The second came about halfway through overtime, with the Hornets up six and in full possession of game momentum. Their downfall? Offensive play calling. The team ran a series of awkward looking picks with a front court of Chris Kaman and Jason Smith (itself a poor decision, given Emeka Okafor's moderate early game back-to-basket success and the fact that Kaman was playing rather inefficiently), but instead of running plays to get Jason Smith jump shots, they called for multiple Kaman lane dives. When Kaman wasn't diving, Houston simply let him hover around, something they could have ill-afforded to do had pick and rolls been run with Jason Smith. The offense proceeded to fall apart, and a couple of transition and semi-transition plays from Houston put them right back into the game.

Some further notes after the jump.

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