Hornets 2020-2021 Season

First real game of the season and a loss. Rozier and Hayward combine for 70 points. Graham had an off shooting night, but had a double-double with 10 points and 10 assists. The rebounding and the interior defense was fucking horrible.
Zeller and Biyombo lumbering around like short armed t-rexes. It seemed like Biyombo was Cleveland's 6th player on offense the way he cleared back out of the lane to allow them several unabated lanes to flush the ball through the net.
Bridges was tops in rebounds for the Hornets with 6. Yeah 6 and he only played 22 minutes, because Hayward was in the process of scoring 28 points.
The Hornets were just bad, bad on D. They were actually favored by 3, but lost by 7. It really wasn't as close of a game as the score would appear. They were down by 21 at halftime.
The new superstar Ball played 16 minutes like a rookie. It was like he was running in beach sand. He was 0-5 and 3 assists.
The coaching staff has enough film from this game to light some individual fires to burn some asses. It's going to be a long season if this game is the norm.

 

yeah, watched the game. wowsa. rough start.

 

I hope the young man can stay healthy.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...lo-ball-19-youngest-ever-record-triple-double

 

he looks pretty good. can't stand his dad and lonzo is pretty meh, but i'm impressed with ball.

 

I can agree with all of that.
I really didn't know what to expect with the young man. It seems the only video I'd seen were just the highlights or the very lowlights. It's nice to see him perform on every play and to see the energy he puts into his play.
He hustles and sticks his nose in around the basket.
His distance shot looks funky, but way better than MKG's ever did.
The fact that he can actually layup with either hand in traffic is something that has amazed me so far. No matter how much I practiced that when younger, it was something I failed at every time.
The coaching staff seems to be having more confidence in him as the season progresses.
I was curious to see how they handled Monk, but he seems to be in the doghouse.
None of the other rookies are seeing much playing time unless it's just mop up minutes.
I thought the big center from Duke would get more minutes, but Biyombo seems to be the Energizer bunny.
Hayward seems to have taken over the old guy Marvin Williams role and in a much better way.
I was really glad to see Nick Batum gone. Way overpaid for what he delivered and sponging minutes from others. I know neither of those was Batum's faults, but with him gone the coaches don't feel pressured to see him justify his paycheck.
If the Hornets can continue to improve then maybe they can sneak into the playoffs.

 

haven't been watching them enough to really have much to say on the team from last year. i was never a biyombo fan, but i guess he's serviceable. i've watched a bit of lamelo ball over the years since he was so hyped and it seems like it's largely the garbage stat stuffing shit you'd expect from high schoolers. like "i'll stand in the back court all day and just cherry pick so i can get to 100". playing in australia probably helped him more than going to college would have. that's a legit league with grown men. probably helped him understand the pro game. he seems really confident and comfortable. he's leaving off the flash crap for the most part as well, which is nice. and he seems engaged on defense which is probably the biggest shock.

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1348083356131614721

 

didn't watch the whole nyk game, but the hornets look really good when they're all moving on offense and ball seems to never stop moving. course, maybe it was just how shitty the nyk's looked. ball really pushes the tempo when he's in the game, too. pretty exciting team... throw somebody like horford in there instead of biyombo and they could win some playoff games.

 

I was watching 2 different feeds online. One was the home Charlotte feed where I was getting a lot of buffering and the New York feed where there was no buffering at all. Interesting that the NY guys were doing a lot of talking about the Hornet zone defense.
In fact one commented that was the best zone defense that the Knicks had faced so far this season.
That was nice to hear, but they also mentioned that the Knicks had failed to reach 90 in their last 3 games. Considering how the Hornets were ole'n paths to the basket their first couple of games, I'll just take it that the Knicks were having a rough patch.
I admit it's a pleasure to watch Gordon Hayward play and see a player that can consistently get his shots to fall.

 

Some questions answered.

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/charlotte-hornets/article248257605.html