Hornets @ Spurs (11/7/2015)

As Jon Bois would say (he of Breaking Madden fame) “It's College Football Saturday!” As the rest of the sports world watches the Alabama-LSU game, we Hornets fans watched them trot into the arena in San Antonio to face the Spurs. They haven’t beaten the spurs in an eon or two, but hoped to fare better this time, coming off of two decisive victories over the Bulls and Mavs. My thoughts:

• It must be a rule that a team has to have an atrocious alternate. The Spurs yellow-camo-sleeved uniforms tonight were really awful. Note: Every Hornet’s uniform is awesome.
• Another trend that I mentioned last game was the 1st quarter hot hand. Tonight it was Kemba Walker. He was very aggressive starting out, especially in his forays to the rim, and finished the quarter with 12 points.
• No major revelation here, but when you turn the ball over, you tend to lose. The Hornets had 15 turnovers, which is egregious, but is more than they would like to average. Perhaps that is a byproduct of running more and passing the ball more, but you would like to see that number go down.
• Spurs are so good at executing. They shot 55% in the first half, and just move the ball so crisply. They are especially good at making the extra pass. Example: assist numbers (35 assists on 45 FG. WOW)
• As hope still lingered in my breast, the 2nd half of the third quarter happened. The Spurs ran a blitzkrieg  and were suddenly up 17 at the end of the third quarter. Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills, and David West dominated the Hornets second unit. This was absolutely the story of the game. The Hornet’s bench had no punch, and the Spurs’ bench looked like All Stars. Hopefully this is a scoring blip for the Hornets, and not a trend of struggling to hit shots and get stops.

Negative: We couldn’t get a stop tonight. The bench couldn’t score. There just didn’t seem to be a ton of fight from this team tonight; when the Spurs got hot, the Hornets just didn’t respond.

Positive: Uh...Frank got some nice burn at the end there. Kemba scored the ball really well, and the starting five generally looked decent.

Moving Forward: PJ Hairston needs to find some confidence in his shot. Remember the D-League, PJ? Score the ball! This team also needs to dedicate itself to the defensive end of the floor. The Spurs are a fantastic team, but they shot over 55% from the floor, which is well above a league average mark.