RECAP
|
BOX SCORE
|
 GAME FLOW
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Jamal Mashburn knows firsthand how
intense the Miami Heat can play. To beat his former team, he knew
Charlotte would have to play just as hard.
|  | | Jamal Mashburn shot 11-for-18 from the field against his former team Friday night. |
Mashburn, one of the nine players involved in an offseason trade
between the teams, came out of the gate shooting Friday night and
scored 30 points to lead the Hornets to an 83-79 victory over the
Heat.
"When you play for Miami you get a good dose of intensity,"
Mashburn said. "Since coming here, me and P.J. (Brown) have tried
to stress that, so my focus is to be aggressive from the jump
street and play with intensity."
Mashburn scored 14 points in the first quarter and had 23 at the
half. He scored only five in the fourth quarter, but all came at
opportune moments.
His tip-in of Baron Davis' miss gave the Hornets a 74-67 lead
with 6:54 to play. He hit a layup four minutes later to again keep
Charlotte's lead at six.
And, after Miami closed to 82-79 on Brian Grant's two free
throws with 36 seconds to play, Mashburn hit a free throw to seal
the victory with 13 seconds left.
"Mash got off to a hot start and burned us from the long
range," said Miami coach Pat Riley. "I expected him to come out
like that, I know what kind of player he is."
Grant led Miami with 33 points and 16 rebounds.
The game matched two teams that changed the faces of their
franchises through the offseason trade. Each team swapped two
starters in the deal, and some of the key players have traded barbs
since the deal went down.
Mashburn and Brown both suggested they were glad to get fresh
starts in a new system. Eddie Jones, meanwhile, said the Hornets
never made him an offer to stay and questioned guard David Wesley's
skills by saying Charlotte never had a point guard while he was
there.
It made for a tense game, especially at the start.
Jones, who said he expected Charlotte fans to welcome him, was
booed during team introductions and throughout the entire game.
"I guess I respected things a little too much," he said. "I
thought they knew something about basketball, I thought they knew
something about the business side of it. I mean, how many times
have they let free agents slip away?"
Jones tried to silence the crowd early by hitting a long 3 less
than a minute into the game.
Wesley then tightened his defense on Jones and slowly started to
take the guard out of his game. Jones was hit with his first of
three first-half fouls at the 8:03 mark, drawing a loud cheer from
the crowd.
Then, Wesley stepped in front of Jones to intercept a pass by
Tim Hardaway and fed it into Baron Davis for an alley-oop dunk.
Hardaway got hit with a foul on the play and Wesley skipped across
the court with his fists in the air.
When Jones was called for traveling in the third quarter, the
crowd began chanting "Ed-die! Ed-die!"
Then, in a crucial series with 47 seconds to play and Charlotte
leading 80-77, both he and Wesley went up for a rebound on Anthony
Carter's miss.
Jones was hit with a foul for going over Wesley's back. He
crumpled to the floor in disbelief as Wesley went to the line and
hit one free throw.
Jones finished with 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting. Wesley had
only seven points on 2-of-13 shooting, but had nine assists and no
turnovers.
"The only thing I can say is I guess now we have a point
guard," Wesley said, "and now we have a two-guard, and we get a
win, too."
Game
notes
Anthony Mason, one of the players Charlotte sent to Miami,
was cheered during his introduction. He finished 0-for-7 from the
field with three points. ... Brown had only two points for
Charlotte and fouled out with four minutes to play. ... The Heat
has now lost eight of the last 13 meetings with Charlotte.
|
|
NBA Scoreboard
Miami Clubhouse
Charlotte Clubhouse
RECAPS
New York 80
Washington 76
Boston 93
Toronto 91
Charlotte 83
Miami 79
Philadelphia 87
Orlando 80
Sacramento 100
Detroit 93
New Jersey 92
Chicago 82
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Pat Riley doesn't feel his team made the plays it needed to make.
wav: 118 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Elden Campbell was happy to let Jamal Mashburn take it to his old team.
wav: 113 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
|
