Charlotte Hornets loss for the second straight time Saturday when the Los Angeles Clippers beat them, 107-102. Charlotte’s have lost nine of past ten games and the Clippers have beaten the Hornets five straight times. All-Star point guard Chris Paul was out with a left thumb injury, while Hornets starting center Cody Zeller was out due to quad soreness, he has missed eight of last nine games for Charlotte. Clippers started the game 0-for-6 from the field, which allowed the Hornets to take an 11-point lead. But Griffin would start going and would score 11 points in the first to help give the Clippers the lead at the end of the first quarter. The Hornets would go on a little run to tie the game with two minutes left in the quarter, but Rivers would hit a layup with 5 seconds left to give the Clippers a 53-51 lead at halftime. The Clippers would extend their lead to 11 with 11 minutes left in the game, but the Hornets would go on a 21-13 run lead by Frank Kaminsky 12 points in the fourth to cut the deficit to just three points with less than four minutes left. But after an ally-oop by DeAndre Jordan and Rivers three-pointer gave the Clippers an 8-point lead and the Hornets just couldn’t make a comeback.
The MVP for the Hornets this game would be Frank Kaminsky who scored 20 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. Frank played great after taking Cody’s place in the starting lineup. He exploded DeAndre Jordan weakness of not being able to guard the three-point line well and use that to get to the basket and hit a couple of three-pointers. Just wished he would do that off the bench, seems like the only time he plays well anymore is when he’s in the starting lineup because someone is injured. That and he stills needs to work on his defense and how to box-out. The alone thing I really want to talk about this game would be Kemba Walker play in the past few games. In the Houston Rockets post, I believed that Kemba was started to get out of his bad groove and that he would play better this game. I was completely wrong on that, Kemba shot 4-of-18 (22%) from the field and was 1-of-9 (11%) from the three-point line. He looks tired out there and unfortunately for him he not going to get a rest on All-Star weekend this year since he an All-Star. So, I don’t really know any suggestion to get him going again but the Hornets need to get him going again. Just like Cubs Manager Joe Maddon said to Dexter Fowler last year, “You go, we go” which applies to Kemba Walker and Hornets success. When Kemba plays well the Hornets play good and when he doesn’t play well the Hornets don’t play good. The leading scorers for the Hornets this game would be Nicolas Batum with 25 points 6 rebounds 8 assists, Marco Belinelli with 17 points and Jeremy Lamb with 13 points. The leading scorers for the Clippers were Jamal Crawford with 22 points, Blake Griffin with 20 points 12 rebounds 8 assists, Austin Rivers with 18 points (he scored 16 of those points in the second half) 5 assist, J.J. Redick with 10 points and DeAndre Jordan who grabbed 16 rebounds. Charlotte Hornets (24-30) host the Philadelphia 76ers Monday, Hornets last home game until March 6th.
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