Last night, before the game, Chris Paul and Tyson Chandler ran laps. Back and forth, seventeen times. If you watched the CST broadcast, you saw it. CP followed it up by nailing 5 out of 5 threes. A tantalizing glimpse at what hope looks like.
The world takes its time from Greenwich. The New Orleans Hornets take their time from Chris Paul. It’s no secret.
And CP would be ready to go, right now, if the Hornets staff said the word. That’s no secret either. Hell, he wanted to go two days after the injury. And if he doesn’t suit up against the Celtics tomorrow night, the game has the potential to go from a marquee matchup to really, really ugly. As in, you thought last night was ugly? Yeah.
Talk about your rough two weeks. I gotta admit, I was pretty down. And then I read this little story by Dan Steinberg, who covers the Washington Wizards:
Before tonight’s Wizards-Pacers game, I went up to Nate and Besse, two of my favorite Wiz fans, and asked why they were here, watching two bad NBA teams, on as beautiful a February evening as D.C. will ever see. They told me they hadn’t missed a game all season, and weren’t about to start now.
Well, after an ill Caron Butler went all MJ in the fourth quarter, scoring 15 straight points in less than four minutes without missing a shot, and after a sleepy and borderline comatose crowd suddenly turned into some whooping remnant of the glory days, and after Caron laid prone on the court with his head in the first row of seats after winning the game, and after his teammates sprinted out to mob him, Nate came running down to the media section.
“Steinberg!” he yelled at me. “That’s why we still come to games.”
Be ashamed, fickle Hornets fans, with your booing and your rustling restlessly and your inane “blow it up because the team is done” trade suggestions. I read that, and realized I was. And, you know, even if CP and Tyson come back tomorrow in time for the Celtics– which, is it really wise to even hope that they will, with the All Star Break coming up?– there’s a huge likelihood the Hornets will still lose. It’s not realistic to pretend otherwise.
But you know what? You should go to the game anyway. And you should have fun at it. If that involves a lot of beer, fine. If it’s a blowout, so be it. But… I’ve seen things happen.
Loyalty isn’t something outdated. It isn’t something that’s for other people. It’s an arena holding its breath. It’s waiting for a familiar face to come running out of the tunnel. It’s swearing you’re going to leave after halftime in a blowout, but then never quite managing to get up out of your seat or switch the channel because you know it’s a lie.
It’s two guys in warmups, running laps on an empty court.
Contemplative
Hey tt6, let’s whip up a potent batch of bloody marys for the ledge partay before we hit the Celtics. I feel your awesome devotion and passion, but we gotta stay loose, really get our vocal cords ready to be LOUD & PROUD and send our guys into the All-Star break with energy. If we have a depleted lineup, my goal is for the guys to play hard enough to keep the Celtics in a rhythm, so they can stay ready to beat Dallas the next night. If we get our horses back, ditto. Naturally, I’ll take a win; after all, last year’s game vs Boston was a stupendous thing of beauty.
I’m here on the ledge at least through the game vs Orlando. Hornets, just gimme some real effort to stare down all that KG smack, and we’ll give you a rowdy homecourt advantage that will have y’all dying to payback the Magic after the break. I’m not scared up here on the ledge, just relaxin’ and workin’ up some serious homecourt hostility. Think of it as a real good sourdough starter, always bubbling and ready to rise to the occasion…
I admire Garnett, of course, but his intensity always brings out my fan intensity. I remember the very first season the Hornets came to N.O. and we played a close game against the T-Wolves early in the year. It was the first so-so crowd, but when the game got tight, I swear it was one of the loudest, most ferocious home crowds I have ever seen at the Hive. Naturally, the Hornets won. See ya there!
The crowd was ferocious for this game last year. It was probably the best of the season.
I’ll be there wearing beads and carrying a geaux cup!!
If the crowd is like last year…and to it’s credit, it’s beenthe CROWD who’s stepped up the last few home games, really trying to urge its understaffed team on.
In honor of our once being thrown out of Boston’s arena FOR DRINKING, we gotta bring the party hard tonight!!!
Dood i would trade Peja in a heart beat for Stoudemire.
Amazing post! That is why I’m a season ticket holder and why I never leave the game until the buzzer sounds. Can’t wait to lose my voice screaming for the boys tonight!!! GO HORNETS!!!
@ Didier: no way. Stoudemire saves you no money, might actually cost more, and takes away our most dangerous deep threat. Plus, Peja is a vastly underrated defender.
I blame Byron for this loss, it was a close game no way we should take Paul and West out to start the fourth, by the time he was back in the C’s were already rolling.
Yeah, but otherwise I thought our offense looked different yet good. Notice how they went down low instead of the usual “live or die by jump shooting”. That’s definitely coaching, as evidenced by the decision to start Hilton.
But at that point I looked at our lineup of Bowen, Marks, Daniels, Brown and Posey, and said, “The hell.” Just one go-to guy. ONE. You put one D West or whoever in with those guys, it’s cool. But that lineup was like a black hole. I guess we also don’t know how tired or sore CP was either.
I cannot WAIT to see this team with everyone healthy. It’s been like 2 months.
So up here on the ledge, I noticed we have this rather rickety bench. There was a little nip in the air, especially up at this altitude, and one can only drink so much firewater to stay warm. So I’m sorry, but I chopped up that bench for kindling to start a little bonfire to keep warm. Don’t worry, it’s a little ways away from our pretty Hornets thatched roof. If our GM were to chop up our bench to give me a solid bench power forward/center and a guy who can reliably create his own shot, I’d bet we could all come down from this ledge and enjoy life a little bit more.
Our offense did look better… until the 4th quarter. Earlier in the game, we just bricked shots. We never had Tyson for either Celtics game, so I don’t bee-lieve we were able to show the champs all about who we are. There were also a few too many folks wearing Celtics gear in the Hive tonight, but I guess that’s to be expected, I think the Celtic nation showed bigger than when we played the Lakers here.
Can we take a moment and notice we took the Defending Champs through 3 Quarters with one starter and only big guy out and two starters just back from injuries? We may not have won, but we were in the game even through the 4th.
So stop the bitching. These guys arent the Saints.
Yeah, I can’t really believe the amount of people who were super negative after this game. I guess it sort of hurts because they were tied after three. The team is super banged up, and even CP wasn’t 100%. It sucked that we couldn’t show them this team at its best, but I thought we knew that going in. Byron had to manage CP’s minutes. You know that’s a guy who’s going to try to play even when it might not be the wisest thing, because he’s so competitive.
Chefcdb– Ledge party continues! Gonna hit the parades then retreat back to the high-up and wait for that first post-All Star win.
Well I will give credit to Daniels and Armstrong for constantly driving the lane, Hilton seems a lot less afraid of it now considering he was driving towards a KG and K. Perkins two guys who I personally would not want to drive the lane on also I kinda wish we could have our bench do that good at the same time our starters are hot……I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we’ll see that day soon.
tt6, I have decided to stay on the ledge through our Mardi Gras West Coast road trip. I think of it as a pretty good balcony parade party, although it’s kinda gusty and windy sometimes up here, and really nobody can hit me with their throws too well at this altitude. But I can sneak down when they’re rolling down The Avenue. The fans from these other teams are pretty amazed by Mardi Gras, and they are warming up to get behind New Orleans having another All-Star Game sooner than later, maybe by 2014. I feel the least I can do is be a cordial host to our fellow so-called 2nd tier playoff teams, all of whom still harbor championship dreams.
Now of course, I want to beat Orlando BAD! They beat us in the Hive last year, too, so the Magic are owed a bitter taste of defeat from all of us in New Orleans. But should we win that game, (and I’m not overlooking an out-of-his-mind Kevin Durant and OKC on the road) we still have the same back2back of going to Lakers/Utah, and that’s no joking matter. I just am going to enjoy this Carnival season, trying to DVR as many games as I can to see how the competition is jelling, or flailing as Big D when they, too, had Boston on the ropes Thursday.
So basically, I’m just gonna try to stay relaxed and ready to yell my lungs out when there’s that one game at The Hive during Carnival. We just need to keep building our energy as fans, savoring the ridiculous fun of Carnival, poking some fun at the mishaps of the other teams out west, see who makes some trades, and regroup for the final push to the summit after Mardi Gras. We might need this ledge as a base camp once we start marching higher in the playoffs, ya heard me!