Hornets Set Sad Franchise Record In 77-62 Loss To 76ers

No Anthony Davis. No Eric Gordon. No Austin Rivers. No bueno for the New Orleans Hornets Wednesday night. With their game being televised nationally on ESPN, the Hornets scored the fewest points in franchise history. When the final buzzer mercifully sounded, the Philadelphia 76ers earned a 77-62 win over the Hornets.To call it ugly would be an insult to ugly basketball everywhere.

Simply put, the Hornets could not find any semblance of offense. Despite their poor shooting, they took a 37-36 lead into the locker room at halftime. Monty Williams' team defended extremely well, forcing Philadelphia into 14 first half turnovers. However, the 76ers flipped the script in the second half, taking care of the basketball and forcing New Orleans into 8 third quarter turnovers while shooting a paltry 4 of 15 (26.7 percent) from the field.

Monty Williams was disappointed by the loss, but not his young team's effort, particularly on defense.

"When you're dealing with a young team and trying to nurture that team, the averages say you're going to have a few nights like this and it's my job to make sure we bounce back. If you told me we're going to hold them to 77 points tonight, I'm thinking we're going to win," explained Williams. "So as bad as we feel, we still held another team under 80."

The previous franchise scoring low was set by the 2008-2009 Hornets in a playoff blowout defeat to the Denver Nuggets. It also occured at the Hive.

Only one Hornet reached double-figures...but barely. Al-Farouq Aminu scored 10 points, and actually finished with a double-double thanks to a career-high 16 rebound performance. Ryan Anderson pulled down 10 boards and scored 9.

The lone solid performance by anyone wearing creole blue came from Jason Smith. Smith scored 8 points, all in the first half when he went 3-3 from the field. He really stood out defensively, finishing with a career-high 5 blocks. Don't look for Smith to remember any of it. After the loss, he was ready to move on.

"It's a long season. Long season. Flush this one down the toilet. We have a lot of games left," said Smith. "We have to continue to fight, continue to get better and we will."

New Orleans will try to bounce back Friday when they host the Charlotte Bobcats. Tip-off from the Hive is set for 7:00.