Hornets sting Mavericks 115-99

If you can expect anything from the New Orleans Hornets, it is to expect the unexpected. The Hornets holding onto their playoff hopes by a thread returned home for the first game in a five game home stand and they opened up with the Dallas Mavericks one of the NBA’s hottest teams. The outlook for New Orleans was not good, but there was a bright spot tonight, after missing the last 25-games with a knee injury All-Star guard Chris Paul would return to the starting lineup. Would the return of Chris Paul spark the Hornets? Well Paul did not have one of his best statistical nights in his return but he certainly sparked the spirit of this struggling team and helped the Hornets to a 115-99 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

Rookie, Marcus Thornton once again made a big impact for the Hornets, leading the way with a game high 28-points, on the play in the picture above Thornton races to the basket on a fast break opportunity in the second half against the Dallas Mavericks.

For tonight’s game I tried something a little different, I shot with my long lens a 400mm and went upstairs to the first level concourse of the New Orleans Arena and I left quite pleased with the results from the evening like the photo above.

I got several clean looks at slam dunks from my shooting position, my favorite was one of rookie guard Darren Collison who had a clean dunk on a fast break, following the dunk he hung on to the rim to keep from falling on top of Dallas guard Jason Terry as shown below.

When shooting the Dallas Mavericks I have the opportunity to shoot one of the most popular European players and I make sure to get plenty of shots of Dirk Nowitski who is almost guaranteed sales to the European clients of the wire service I work for. I took a lot of photos of Dirk, I liked the reaction from this image.