NEW ORLEANS, (Reuters) – The New Orleans Hornets pulled off a tight 96-93 victory over the fast-finishing Miami Heat on Friday to record their fifth successive win and the franchise’s best start to a season.
The Heat, who had won their previous four games after losing their season opener to Boston, had taken a 90-89 lead when LeBron James made two free throws with just 59 seconds left.
Marco Belinelli however made two free throws and Trevor Ariza hit a clutch three-point shot from the corner with 14 seconds left to give the Hornets a four-point lead.
“I’m a player that lives in the moment, especially big moments,” Ariza said. “The ball came to me, I was open, I shot, the ball went in.”
While Miami’s Chris Bosh reduced the deficit to one point with a three-pointer, David West made two free throws with seven seconds remaining.
The Heat had one last opportunity to tie the score and force overtime with a successful three-pointer, but surprisingly gave the ball to guard Eddie House, who had missed all six previous attempts from three-point range. He subsequently made it seven.
“I just told Eddie coming out of the timeout that the eyes were going to be on us,” Miami guard Dwyane Wade said.
“It was a great look I don’t care how many he missed, we’d go with that shot every game if we had to.”
Emeka Okafor lead the Hornets with 26 points and Chris Paul had a double-double with 13 points and 19 assists.
Wade led the Heat with 28 points and 10 rebounds while James scored 20 points and said his team needed to up their intensity.
“I think one thing we have to continue to learn is every time we step on the basketball court, no matter who we’re going against, we can’t just show up because we have this uniform on,” James said.
“It’s not about X’s and O’s, it’s about the energy level.”
