Hornets-Warriors Preview

By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN
Posted Mar 28 2012 2:35AM

The New Orleans Hornets saw firsthand why the Golden State Warriors are now going to build their team around Klay Thompson.

Thompson put together an outstanding performance to help the Warriors beat the Hornets last week and these teams meet seven days later Wednesday night at ORACLE Arena.

Golden State (20-28) won 101-92 at New Orleans (12-37) last Wednesday in an entertaining affair in which the rookie had 27 points on 11-of-24 shooting. The scoring total established a season high at the time for the player selected with the No. 11 pick.

The Warriors are 2-6 since trading leading scorer Monta Ellis to Milwaukee on March 15. Thompson has figured prominently in both victories with a season-best 31 in a 111-108 win over Sacramento on Saturday.

Hornets point guard Jarrett Jack had 17 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds for his first career triple-double in last week's matchup with the Warriors. New Orleans fell despite a 47-33 edge on the glass.

Part of the Hornets' problem was they failed to defend the 3-point arc well, allowing the Warriors to make 14 of 29 attempts. That's normally a strength for New Orleans, which is second in the NBA in limiting opponents to 31.1 percent shooting on 3-pointers.

Thompson, however, presents a unique challenge as he leads all rookies with 42.1 percent 3-point shooting.

The Hornets opened a five-game trip with Monday's 97-85 loss to the Clippers, finishing with a season-worst 29 turnovers that led to 35 points for Los Angeles.

"You're never going to win playing like that," coach Monty Williams said. "Our point guards had a number of them but it was everybody."

No starter scored in double figures while Jack and backup point guard Greivis Vasquez combined for 11 turnovers.

"Part of our bad start was not handling the ball correctly and turning it over. You really can't get into a rhythm when you're playing like that," Jack said. "I put a lot of it on my shoulders. I didn't do a good job of setting a tempo for the game, and I am not really happy with the way I played."

The Hornets will get Jason Smith back after the 7-footer completed a two-game suspension Monday for a flagrant foul against Blake Griffin last Thursday.

The Warriors will likely again be short-handed for this game with Stephen Curry nursing a right ankle sprain, Andris Biedrins out with a groin injury and Nate Robinson sidelined with a strained right hamstring.

Golden State fought gamely in rallying from 16 points down before falling 104-101 at home to the Lakers on Tuesday. David Lee and Brandon Rush each scored 23 points and Thompson - one of three rookies in the lineup - chipped in with 20.

"The bottom line is, at the end of the day, I've got a bunch of guys that compete, that get after it, that work extremely hard, that have tremendous character and pride and gave ourselves a chance," coach Mark Jackson said.

Hornets rout Warriors 102-87 for rare win

By ANTONIO GONZALEZ
Posted Mar 29 2012 1:41AM

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Monty Williams struggled to describe his team's latest effort Wednesday night. And for a change, that was actually a good thing for the New Orleans Hornets.

Marco Belinelli had 22 points and six assists, Jarrett Jack added 20 points and nine assists and the Hornets earned a rare victory by routing the Golden State Warriors 102-87 on Wednesday night in a matchup of shorthanded teams out of the playoff chase.

"It's past a mystery," coach said when asked where the scoring will come from in a shattered lineup each night. "It's more like a conundrum."

Carl Landry also chipped in 20 points and eight rebounds to help New Orleans build a 20-point lead in the third quarter and cruise to victory for a change. The Hornets, last in the Western Conference, won for only the 13th time this season.

"Teams better watch out," said guard Greivis Vasquez, who had six points, six assists and four rebounds. "We might mess around and win a couple games."

The Warriors have fallen so fast they're suddenly in a similar situation.

David Lee had 28 points, seven rebounds and five assists and Klay Thompson scored 13 for the Warriors, who fell to 2-8 since trading leading scorer Monta Ellis to Milwaukee in a move that netted injured center Andrew Bogut. While the trade was made for future success, it hasn't helped the present.

"There's no such thing as overlooking a team when we're the third-worst team in the West," Lee said. "We don't have that luxury. We just didn't play well tonight."

The plodding pace perhaps should've been predictable.

Warriors point guard Stephen Curry (sprained right ankle) missed his 11th straight game - and 21st overall - and, along with new big man Andrew Bogut (fractured left ankle), is unlikely to play again this season. Andris Biedrins (strained right groin) also wasn't in uniform.

Trevor Ariza (sore right ankle), Chris Kaman (illness), Emeka Okafor (sore left knee) and Eric Gordon (bruised right knee) all sat out for the Hornets. Gordon has played in only two games this season.

The absence of so many starters showed.

The flow of the game was mundane and the typically bouncing Bay Area crowd was subdued, even though an announced 18,771 fans still attended. Other than a few quick bursts, there wasn't much to cheer about.

New Orleans scored 10 straight in the second quarter on a run capped by a pick-and-roll pass from Vasquez to Jason Smith for a layup that gave the Hornets a 39-26 lead. They went ahead by 17 at halftime, and boos rang out so loud from the home crowd that Warriors owner Joe Lacob - jeered for several minutes last week during Hall of Famer Chris Mullin's jersey retirement ceremony at the arena - didn't even get out of his seat.

The Hornets built a 69-49 lead halfway through the third quarter on a layup by Jack. Golden State made a brief run to close within a dozen before New Orleans regrouped and blew away the Warriors.

"You still have a job to do," Jack said he tells his younger teammates at this point in the season. "Don't sell yourself short. Don't sell the team, the city or the fans short. They come out each and every game. Go out and play hard and don't do yourself a disservice."

Pride is about all either team has left to play for.

The Hornets are four games back of Sacramento, the next worst team in the Western Conference. Only Charlotte and Washington have fewer wins than New Orleans, which actually has more victories on the road (8) than at home (5).

Golden State is a shell of the team it was a couple weeks ago.

The Warriors still had dim playoff hopes when they traded Ellis - a fan favorite and heart of the Warriors offense - along with Ekpe Udoh and Kwame Brown to Milwaukee for Bogut. The Australian center and 2005 No. 1 overall pick will not play this season but is expected to be Golden State's franchise big man in the future.

NOTES: Curry will officially be sidelined for another two weeks, the team announced Wednesday. He will be re-evaluated after that time and, though unlikely, he's still trying to play again this season. ... The Hornets play at Portland on Thursday night, while the Warriors don't play again until hosting New Jersey on Friday night.

Notebook: Hornets 102, Warriors 87

Posted Thursday March 29, 2012 2:03AM

By Geoff Lepper, for NBA.com

THE FACTS: Marco Belinelli paid back his original NBA team with a season-high-tying 22 points, six assists and three steals as the New Orleans Hornets beat the Golden State Warriors 102-87 Wednesday.

Carl Landry, taking advantage of a rare start for the injury-plagued Hornets, put up 20 points and eight rebounds. Jarrett Jack had 20 points and nine assists for New Orleans, who only turned the ball over nine times to Golden State's 16.

Belinelli, a first-round pick of the Warriors in 2007, had eight points in the fourth quarter to keep the hosts at bay.

David Lee led Golden State with 28 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

QUOTABLE: "When you get drafted into this league, there are certain things you sign up for. Obviously, you get the perks, the money, the traveling. But you have a job to do for 82 games -- obviously it's 66 this time. Don't sell yourself short. Don't sell the organization short. The city, the fans, they come out and support us every night, and we've got to pay them back by playing each and every game (hard), regardless of if you're in playoff contention or not."
-- Jack, on how the Hornets focus without a playoff berth as motivation

THE STAT: New Orleans ranked No. 2 in 3-point shooting defense coming into Wednesday, holding opponents to 31.1 percent. In beating the Hornets last week, Golden State ripped them for 14 treys on 48.3 percent shooting beyond the arc. Wednesday, New Orleans kept those numbers to 10 3-pointers and 35.7 percent -- and the Hornets went 7-for-11 themselves from deep.

TURNING POINT: The Warriors defense broke down on all fronts in the second quarter, as the Hornets poured home uncontested shots to go 12-for-15 (80 percent) and outscore Golden State, 30-16.

GOOD MOVE: New Orleans coach Monty Williams would rather use Landry off the bench, but the absences to Chris Kaman (illness), Gustavo Ayon (in New Orleans for the birth of his child) and Emeka Okafor (sore left knee) forced him to start Landry alongside Jason Smith -- himself returning from a two-game suspension for delivering a hard foul to Blake Griffin -- at the 4 and 5 spots.

The move worked spectacularly against the short-handed Warriors front line. In addition to Landry's numbers, Smith put up 12 points on 6-for-7 shooting, with six boards.

HOT: Chris Paul no longer mans the point for New Orleans, but Jack and Greivis Vasquez combined for Paul-like success, gutting the Warriors' defense time and again. The pair combined for 16 points and nine assists while committing no turnovers in the first half, when the Hornets shot 63.2 percent and opened a 57-40 lead.

QUOTABLE II: "They beat us really bad and we responded pretty well. We came back here and got a great win. ... Wins like this are going to keep us motivated. The future's going to be bright for us."
-- Vasquez

NOT: Nate Robinson, coming back from a two-game absence due to a right hamstring problem, started at the point for Golden State and simply wasn't effective, going 0-for-6 from the floor and clocking a minus-13 on the plus/minus scale in 23 minutes.

INSIDE THE ARENA: Boobirds were out for much of the evening, as the Warriors failed to impress against a banged-up Hornets team. Fans even got a "We want Monta!" chant going in the fourth quarter, referring to the Warriors' five-player deal with Milwaukee earlier this month, which sent Monta Ellis to the Bucks as the principal piece in exchange for injured center Andrew Bogut.

ROOKIE WATCH: Klay Thompson had 13 points for the Warriors, but struggled defensively and committed five turnovers.

NOTABLE: Rookie Warriors point guard Charles Jenkins, a key cog in the continued absence of Stephen Curry, suffered his own right ankle injury Wednesday. He came off limping with 2:57 left in the third quarter and went to the locker room shortly thereafter. Although he returned to the bench, he did not play again, even as the game entered its empty-the-bench phase. ... This is the 11th time in 13 New Orleans wins that the opponent didn't break 90 points. ... The Warriors have dropped three straight.

UP NEXT: For the Warriors, Friday vs. New Jersey, Sunday @ L.A. Lakers, Tuesday @ Memphis. For the Hornets, Thursday @ Portland, Saturday @ L.A. Lakers, Sunday @ Phoenix.

• Hornets: Gordon
• Warriors: Bogut, Curry, Wright

• Hornets: --
• Warriors: Lee

• Lead Changes: 6
• Times Tied: 4

• Arena: ORACLE Arena, Oakland, CA
• Officials: #49 Tom Washington, #75 Eric Dalen, #73 Tre Maddox
• Attendance: 18771
• Duration: 2:02