Who: <font color="teal">New Orleans Hornets</font> and <font color="yellow">Golden State Warriors</font> Where: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana When: Saturday, March 13th Time: 7 pm Central Time (8 pm Eastern Time) TV: CST <u>Records:</u> <font color="teal">Hornets (34-31, 4th in Central Division)</font> <font color="yellow">Warriors (25-38, 6th in Pacific Division)</font> <u>Likely Starters</u> <u>Key Matchup</u> This matchup might decide the entire game. Ok, well maybe not. But its the only one that can really be looked at. Golden State played their last game, Friday night versus San Antonio, with an extremely unconventional starting lineup featuring no real point guard and three forwards. Suffice it to say that it didn't work, getting trounced by the Spurs. Their only guys playing at their position were Cliff Robinson and Erick Dampier. Of those two, Damp is in the more critical position. All season he's been praised for his improved level of play in all aspects of the game, but he's going up against New Orleans' All Star center in Jamaal Magloire. Both are in-the-paint bruisers who don't score as much as their more celebrated teammates. And though they haven't met too many times before this, this matchup could be a real indicator of future contests when the Hornets will play in the West and Magloire and Dampier meet several times a year. <u>Keys to the Game</u> <font color="teal">Hornets</font> -Get Baron started fast. The Warriors really don't have anyone who can check the Bugs' superstar, and he could concievably go wild against them in both points and assists. -Control the paint. The Warriors have several quality boardsmen in Dampier, Troy Murphy, Robinson, Dunleavy and Cardinal. And Jason Richardson is underrated on the offensive glass. In short, the Hornets big men need to stay strong and own the pain on defense and hustle after missed shots on the other end. Magloire and Brown are constants: the question mark will be on Robert Traylor, David West and George Lynch as to whether they can earn their bread this game. -Get shots spread around late in the game. There's nothing worse late in the game than when Davis is the only one hitting(or even taking) shots. David Wesley needs to keep building up his confidence, and Darrell Armstrong needs to get some looks. And Jamaal Magloire, too often forgotten in crunch time, needs to be utilized more. <font color="yellow">Warriors</font> -Isolate Mike Dunleavy, allowing him to utilize his huge height advantage on David Wesley. The Hornets might switch up and put Wesley on a smaller player, but even George Lynch, Steve Smith and Stacey Augmon will have trouble with the lanky GState forward. -Make their big men take midrange shots to spread the Hornets' D; the Hornets have a couple quality shot blockers who more importantly clog the lane, so if JRich and the other Warriors want to penetrate, its up to their big men to draw the bigger Hornets out of the paint. -Don't make JRich count shots. Richardson is so much better when he feels the freedom of the offense without having to worry about a couple missed shots. The Warriors will be hard pressed to win this game anyway, so they might as well milk as many points out of their star as possible to keep the game close. Starman's Prediction: I just don't think the Warriors have the killer instinct to put away an experienced team like the Hornets. I expect that with their youth and athleticism, the Warriors will keep the game suspenseful for the first half, maybe the first three quarters. But by the fourth quarter there should be no question as to who the better team is. Hornets by 8.
Dunleavy is playing the point, J-Rich is the 2. Anyways, the Hornets need to take this one and Baron needs to fill it up again. The guy that really needs to take over and help Baron is Magloire, if those 2 have good games and Wesly has a decent game, they should take this one. I say the Hornets by 6, GS isn't <u>that</u> bad.
Hornets win 102-84, thats an 18 point victory right there. I thought GS would put up a better fight, and like I said Baron will light it up (Almost TD, 24 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds), and he did. I also said if Magloire helps we should take this which he did scoring 18 points and pulling down 10 boards. The rest of the Hornets played pretty good, and the team shot 55.6% as a whole. The Hornets also dished out 31 assists to the Warriors 19, and had 14 steals to the Warriors 5. The Warriors committed 21 turnovers and were out rebounded 37-33. Troy Murphy returned for GS and had a great game scoring 15 points (7-8)and pulled down 9 rebounds.
