Another rain of threes

(RETIRE MOSES MALONE’S  SIXERS #2 JERSEY ! S4G PETITION – SIGN HERE)

…this time resulting in a loss, 101-86 vs the Hornets, that pushes us below .500 again (21-22, .488).

I couldn’t watch the game last night and I will troubles also catching the upcoming one at Houston.

They both are blackouted on Int’l League Pass and the site that used to put online NBA replaying games was apparently shut down few days ago (…). That really sucks. 

Anyway I think/hope Sixerdave will cover the Houston game for us and I’ll have an interesting Q&A session with a cool Rockets blog before it, so stay tuned on S4G.

Sorry for the lack of coverage of the Hornets loss but from Mon to Fri it’s really tough for me to watch the games live and then go to work the day after, especially when Sixers play on the road vs Westen conference teams.

That would mean going to bed at around 4 AM, sleep less than four hours and then work from 9 to 7… not exactly the kind of rythm you can keep for a long time, especially if you would like to do both things (blogging & working, I mean) pretty well. 

As usual when I couldn’t catch the game, I watched highlights, scrutinezed the play-by-play page, I read a lot of (relieble) reports around so that I’ll stick to some actual facts that can be analyzed.

Quicky:

1) we allowed the second consecutive barrage from three point land. After Knicks went 15/32, Hornets followed with their own 14/31. Make it 29/63 (46%) in the last two games.

Pedja Stojakovic had a streak of FIVE threes knocked down in the fourth (!), scoring all of New Orleans’s initial fifteen points, and the game looked pretty much over (81-66). To our credit, we had a great effort after that, and were able to cut the lead to only seven in the final (89-82) but Paul with a jumper and Posey with another three closed the game

2) we struggled shooting the ball from behind the arc and from the line. It’s something that we hoped and thought had been addressed, but evidently we still tend to repeat the same mistakes.

The free throw thing is really annoying…

Lou Williams is going through another shooting slump (6/22 in the last two games) but I saw he filled the stat line nicely, in terms of rebounding (7 !) and dishing the ball (6), so he must have contributed somehow.

3) we didn’t take advantage of Hornets’ (important) absences. David West and Tyson Chandler form a pretty formidable front court, but they both were out with injuries. Judging from the aforementioned facts, we couldn’t dominate the paint, also because Brand AND Speights had off nights.

When you play Hilton frikkin’ Armstrong, Julian friggin’ Wright and Sean suckin’ Marks and you lose by 15 points, you can only shut up.

4) C-H-R-I-S P-A-U-L (in the picture). Enough said. Stunning.

Check Ryan’s Hornets 247 blog, he has some great points about what was decisive in New Orleans’ favor: leaving it all on the floor. The game was “non stop-excitement” from Ryan’s standpoint, and it’s not that difficult to believe him !