The Hornets picked up a dramatic overtime victory over the Jazz, but David West appears to have hurt himself badly. His left knee buckled upon landing after a clutch dunk over Al Jefferson late in the fourth quarter…
I haven’t heard any official word on the injury yet, but it certainly doesn’t look good. I imagine he has to be out for at least the rest of this season. You could litterally hear him groaning in pain as he layed on the floor, and he had to be taken off the floor in a wheelchair. He draped a towel over his face as he was brought to the lockerroom… it was just a terrible scene… something you absolutely never want to see happen to anyone.
This game was one helluva rollercoaster ride. New Orleans took a 9-0 lead, trailed at the end of one, led at the end of two, and it was all knotted up with 46 seconds left. That’s when Paul Millsap went to work and took David West off the dribble for an and-one that made it 101-101. Millsap had one of his best nights of the season with 33 points, nine of which had been scored in the fourth before the bucket I just mentioned. He’d proceed to take West off the dribble again and hit Al Jefferson with an excellent pass which led to a layup. I’ve seen Paul Millsap play plenty of times, but I have never seen him handle the ball like this. He was making spin moves, crossovers, hesitations… he was basically making guard-like moves, and doing it successfully and repeatedly. Anyway, Al Jeff’s layup made it 103-101 with 31 seconds left. That’s when David West decided he had had enough and took it strong to the rack. He made the best play of his career that he’ll never ever want to see again. The injury completely sucked the air out of the building. The crowd was silenced, the players were shook, and I think everyone would’ve been cool with calling it a night with the score tied up. The game must go on, though. Paul Millsap once again took his man off the dribble and got himself to the stripe. It would’ve been a fitting way to finish this thing… a blah end to a blah game (it was a great game, actually, it’s just that the injury was such an upsetting scene… I really think everyone was ready to go home). Millsap knocked ‘em both down, and New Orleans would have to go the legnth of the floor in under two seconds.
Go figure. The OT would come down to freethrow shooting. New Orleans had a three-point lead with 30 seconds left, and Utah chose to foul Aaron Gray, a 50-percent freethrow shooter. Trevor Ariza seemed to have made a bonehead play by inbounding him the ball… but then the big fella went and swished both. Al Jefferson got a bucket on the following possession, and the ball was inbounded to Gray again. He has to miss one this time, right? Wrong. He swished another pair. Gordon Hayward drove to the rack and dunked the ball, making it 118-115. Gray was finally removed from the game in favor of Marco Belinelli, and CP3 was fouled. Oddly enough, he bricked one of two. Still, it was a two possession game, and Utah could never catch up. New Orleans eventually ended up taking it 121-117. The Bees were led in scoring by David West, who dropped his 28th and 29th points on the play where he got hurt. Both teams shot 50/40/80 from the field/distance/stripe in the high-scoring affair… something unusual for the team from Louisiana which puts up the fourth-fewest PPG in the association. This win keeps New Orleans just ahead of the Grizzlies for 7th place, but without David West they obviously aren’t going to be making any noise if they hang in and make the postseason. They have an extremely tough schedule remaining (PHX, LAL, POR, MEM, IND, HOU, PHX, MEM, UTA, DAL), and this could be the break that Phoenix or Houston needed to squeak their way in. New Orleans does have as good a backup PF as there is in the league in Carl Landry… but I still don’t see them winning many of those games. They could very well go 3-7 and fall out of the playoffs, which would quite honestly be a good thing if they aren’t going to have D-West.
