hugoclt

Pacers(10-7) @ Hornets(7-10) [Preview]

Published on January 27, 2021 by hugocltLeave a comment

The Pacers come to Charlotte tonight for their first of 2 games at the spectrum center. The Hornets look to close the gap and move up to the upper echelon of 10 loss teams in the east. The Hornets have been playing underwhelming, uninspiring, dogshit basketball under Borrego the past few weeks. Borrego needs to do change something; maybe switch defenses, change rotations, play different bigs, yell at the players, bark at the refs, throw a chair, SOMETHING. His monotone reflections before and after games almost makes me understand the players lack of enthusiasm, a coach should be a motivator or at least evoke some sort of emotions. The Hornets have been playing flat as hell, might be time to start photoshopping cigs into Borrego’s mouth a la Jay Cutler because it really seems like he “don’t careeeee”.

The Pacers should not be as upset as the Hornets because they are sitting pretty at 4th in the eastern conference and only a half game behind the Bucks in the central. The Pacers also received tremendous news that Caris LeVert’s kidney growth has been successfully operated on with no future treatment needed, after the trade that may have quite literally saved his life. I could see Domantas Sabonis being a real problem for the Hornets tonight but he is listed as a game time decision so it may not come to that. Just checked Sabonis’ stat line for the last matchup against us and whoooof, lets hope he doesn’t put up another +39 on us shooting 80% from the field.

Hornets Keys

Emotion – Playing with emotion is very clearly not going to happen because of Borrego but someone has to step up and give us some enthusiasm (or something).

Defend 3’s – can I get a closeout? Please? Anyone? If the hornets can hold them to under 43% (not asking for much here) from three I would be happy and stfu about the closeouts, at least temporarily.

Bigs – If Carey and Richards cannot give us anything better than current Bizmack then we might as well send their asses to Greensboro (I don’t think they suck that bad, Hornets just need to see what they have here)

Pacers Keys

Myles Turner – With Sabonis likely out, Myles Turner needs to take advantage of the Hornets poor post defense.

Defend Gordon – The Pacers do not matchup versus Hayward very well and he has been on a heater lately.

Hornets-108 Magic-117 [Wrap-up]

Published on January 26, 2021 by hugocltLeave a comment

The Hornets failed take two in Orlando as they join the Knicks, Magic, Raptors, Bulls, and Heat with 10 losses in the East. The Southeast Division might end up like the garbage ass NFC east and have a team “win” the division with a losing record. Gordon, Graham, and Rozier all had 20 point efforts and Miles had another 10pts off the bench, other than that the rest of the team played pretty meh. The starters shot a very respectable 44% from deep while the bench posted a gross 0/13…

The Hornets actually managed to win a first quarter last night, handily at 30-19. That lead did not last long as the Magic ripped off 8 quick points to start the second, including a 3 from former Hornet Dwayne Bacon. The Magic continued walking all over charlotte in the 2^nd quarter, going up 9 at one point, marking a 20 point swing in only 8 minutes. I cannot speak for the Hornets, but I sure as shit was demoralized at this point. The small run to bring us to within one before half helped a bit, but I wasn’t buying it.

The Hornets came out after halftime flatter than Taylor Swifts ass and were down 10 in no time at all. More of the same all the way through the 4^th as the magic made easy work of us. The Hornets “won” the fourth quarter 32-30 but that was mostly garbage time consolation prize crap.

-We did not close out well, I’m starting to think that shitty closeouts are part of Borrego’s big brain defensive scheme. The Magic shot over 50% from deep.

-Role player waxed us again, Dwayne Bacon dropped 15 points, yes that Dwayne Bacon

-Is Vernon Carey that bad? How can anyone be that much worse than our bigs at the moment? I’d like to at least see what we have with him so we can make moves accordingly (same goes for Nick Richards but he’s injured currently.)

Hornets (7-9) @ Magic (7-10) [Preview]

Published on January 25, 2021 by hugocltLeave a comment

Welp, not too much to talk about in the preview when you’re playing a back to back against the same team, the Magic. The Hornets look to build on their win last night blah blah blah and it looks like Aaron Gordon and Bamba will miss their second straight game.

I hope we see something different out of the defense tonight. The late closeouts on shooters are REALLY starting to make my eyes bleed. The only reason we were still in the game last night was because the Magic kind of suck, just like us right now. I am going try to count how many late closeouts the Hornets have tonight, I may have to bust out the abacas…

Now that the Hornets are back on track I think Terry Rozier is due to get going again, which he showed bursts of in last nights 4^th quarter. Terry was by far our best basketball player in the first handful of games this season, if we can combine that Terry with the current Gordon and some great energy off the bench, the playoffs start becoming a realistic probability again.

Fournier looks like he has slow feet even in a still image

Charlotte Keys

Start off hot – Hornets have not won a 1^st quarter since beating the Knicks on January 11^th. Playing from ahead should be a priority against suckyish teams like the Magic. Hey Borrego if Devonte’ starts off hot as shit maybe don’t sub him out at the 6:30 mark in the first like usual, its ok to play the hot hand, no reason to try to outsmart yourself

M&M’s – Melo and Miles need to bring the same energy off the bench tonight as they did last night, even if they don’t meet the production (I’m going to call them M&M’s and you can’t stop me, I will be adding a photoshop at some point to the “Takes” section. We stand no chance if our bench comes out flat, see that 4 game skid for reference.

Stop Gary Allen – When TF are we going to stop letting role players take a dump on us?

Orlando Keys

Limit drives – Hornets smoked them on drives yesterday, some of the blow byes could have been limited with quicker feet, cough Fournier cough.

Turn mini runs into actual runs – If the Magic could have extended on of their mini runs last night the game would have been out of reach by the 4^th quarter.

Prop Bets HugoCLT’s Overall Record (6-1)

Terry Rozier OVER 17.5pts (-120)

Gordon Hayward OVER 3.5asts (-125)

LaMelo Ball OVER 5.5rebs (-105)