Well played, Hornets. Well played.
Unstoppable (Adjective): 1) Incapable of being stopped.
Chris Paul could not be stopped tonight. He had 30 points, 19 assists, and 9 rebounds. He was 7-7 in the third quarter. He was inside, he was outside, he was in the lane (finally, yes, we can all exhale a bit to see him dominating from there for the first time since his ankle injury), at the line. There was a stretch of the third to fourth quarters in which he had 22 out of the Hornets 24 points. There was a point when the Nuggets made a mini-run to close the gap, and Chris Paul checked back into the game, and his very presence, solely by being on the floor, was magic.
And there it was, in the building tonight, the Thing We Don’t Talk About. The players knew it. The fans knew it. And then in the fourth quarter I noticed something. Namely that Darius Songaila and Emeka Okafor weren’t on the floor, which was a little unusual. And that Devin Brown was, which was also a little unusual (but unsurprising considering neither Collison nor Thornton had a good showing tonight). The Hornets went with a crunch time lineup of Paul/West/Posey/Stojakovic/Brown. I think it is not coincidental that those five guys were all there last April, and were playing inspired and scrappy ball tonight. I think they wanted to close this out. And I think they deserved to.
If you’ve ever seen the movie The Sting, it’s about two con men who get revenge on a big mob boss by running an elaborate con and cheating him out of a quarter million dollars. But, the one character warns the other, taking the boss’s money isn’t going to be enough– it’s not going to change the past. And at the end, the other guy turns to the first guy and says, “You’re right. It’s not enough…. But it’s close.”
Posted in Around Town, CP3 Will Eat Your Soul, Game Recaps, Playoffs 09, Rivals |
Mood Right Now:
Still standing
I’ve really loved the fight these Hornets have shown. Last year had some curl up and die games where a 16 point deficit seems too much and the team would fade especially against a really aggressive team. This revision of the New Orleans Hornets got spunk. I love a fighter that has heart.
Ticktock, you know I love you, but did you really just start this blog post with a dictionary definition?
Yes?