Unexpected, this is. And unfortunate.

You know how much I love seeing the Hornets get media hype. You know it’s the mission on which this site was built.

But there’s such a thing as overhype. I know, unbelievable, right?

Even I was rolling my eyes at the torrent of articles last week talking about the meteoric rise of the Hornets, the Changing of the Guard, and how Chris Paul is the Next Coming of Whoever and the Savior of Basketball. Partly because, well, yeah, the Hornets are up-and-coming. Thanks for finally noticing. But I thought it was overhype. It was too much too soon.

I thought, “Well, the Hornets needed playoff confidence, so maybe it’s OK?” But there’s a difference between confidence and believing your own legend. And maybe the Hornets started believing their legend, a little too much. See, that’s the thing about the media. They’re not content with you and your story. They’ve got to spin it, they’ve got to enlarge it, they’ve got to shape it into something else more exciting. That story? That’s not you. It’s something they made, and then called by your name. But you’re in trouble now. Now the Spurs believe their own legend. And if you’re the Hornets, that is the very last thing you wanted to let happen.

You thought the Spurs were going to be content to win one game in their castle? You thought they were going to roll over for you? You thought this was going to be easy?

And now here we are, tied 2-2, with essentially a must-win Game 5 at home. Simply put, if the Hornets drop this game, I’m not sure I believe they can pull this out. I went on one of the forums last night and had to sign off in disgust. Supposed Hornets fans, bragging about how they’d picked the Spurs in 6 from the beginning? Why would you brag about that? Jesus. “Let me go on a fan forum and brag about my own total douchebaggery.” Yeah, no thanks. With fans like that, who needs enemies? Is this how it’s going to end, before it’s even over?

No. That’s not the way to go. That’s not the way the Hornets are going to go. Dropping 4 straight? That hasn’t happened all season.

It comes down to this.

Tell us what we have to do.

It’s come down to this before. And before, and before. If you were there, you remember. You know what the power of the mob can do. The Hornets are 17-1 at home going back to February. If you want us to boo, we’ll boo every time they’re touching the ball. If you want us to scream, we’ll scream. If you ask for gold, we will give you gold. (And, in fact, more gold shirts are on the schedule for Tuesday night.)

And so, here’s my message to the Hornets: We’re your home advantage. You created us. You made us, from 8,000 half-assed people in the lower bowl to what we are today. It’s your advantage. You earned it. Just like you earned the right to be in a best-of-3, this week, with the defending champions. Me, personally? I will do whatever it takes. But unfortunately, guys, I don’t get to be on the court playing the game. That part’s up to you.

I somehow feel arts and crafts time coming on… and you know what that means.

FAN UP OR SHUT UP.

On this day of many posts and more to come, I just want to send a huge shout out to the airport crew, the Asylum, the BeerGardeners, the G.B.ers, the boarders, the ladies at the Abita tap on the 100 level (you rock!), the Back Row (represent!), 247, At the Hive, and all the awesome people we’ve met over the course of this season!

And you know, when I started this blog, I had a sinking feeling that New Orleans would never come through for this team. And they’d never meet the benchmark. And just when things were starting to get great, the team would leave. Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be my final CrowdWatch of the year, because last night’s sellout put the Hornets’ attendance over the benchmark of 14,735 for the first time.

56-26.

Now breathe. And get ready to take it higher.

I would give you a photo of what the CP3 for MVP t-shirt giveaway looks like, but that thing is so X-Large that if I put it back on, I’m not sure I’ll be able to find my way out of it again… I kid, I kid. That’s it on the left.

We were also (barely) able to score our Chris Paul bobbleheads. They passed out cards with “CP3 MVP” on one side and “GEAUX HORNETS” on the other. I thought they could have done a better job of coordinating that stuff via the PA announcer, but whatever. The fans more or less did all right with it. Chris Paul’s bobblehead doesn’t really look like Chris Paul, but it does have one yellow bracelet and one white. Cute! Just like the real Chris Paul.

As for the game, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

Ric Flair was there to personally do the “WHOO!” Hornets fell behind early, then blasted their way through the 2nd quarter to take the lead. Hornets and Warriors exchanged runs throughout the second half. CP3 had a triple double on national TV, and really, though it was a rather quiet game for him (SEE? HOW SPOILED ARE WE??? You want to trade your guy’s night for our guy’s quiet 16 pts, 13 ast, 10 reb, and 5 steals? Oh, too bad. You can’t have him), might have just sealed up the MVP right there. Jannero Pargo took over the 2nd quarter and scored 15 points off the bench. David West started out limited but finished strong. Bonzi Wells lounged on the bench and drank Red Bull, while still managing to be great in that strange Bonzi way. Peja was Peja. Hornets rolled 108-96, picking up win #54 and a 2 game cushion for the #1 seed in the West.

Notes on ABC’s coverage:

We DVRed this game just because we had to see for ourselves whether any shitlistings would be imminent. But it’s okay, ABC’s safe. It was probably some of the nicest coverage the Hornets have had recently. (And you think by “nicest,” I mean they talked about us the most. No. I don’t think people who live in other cities truly understand the number of ill-informed cheap shots taken at the city of New Orleans and the team during regular coverage of these games. It’s still happening, and it’s really annoying. So I really do mean “nicest” as in, they were nice.)

• I guess, cool as the Hornets are, they aren’t as cool as Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns, because we never get the parking garage shot of them walking past their expensive black cars into the arena. You know you’ve made it when you get a parking garage shot.
• At the beginning of the game, they did a close-up on Chris Paul stretching, and he started coughing and had to get up because the smoke was in his face.
• There was a massive MVP chant for Chris Paul in the 4th quarter, but they went to commercial break.
• Announcers loved Tyson, called D-West “well, I hesitate to say this, but one of the great players in this league,” and said Peja was back in old-school form.
• ABC agreed with us on the quality of the officiating.
• Pargo got interviewed at halftime. I don’t think they knew where Pargo came from.
• We got to go inside the locker room and hear both coaches discussing their game plan for the second half. Nelson: “We aren’t sticking to the plan. We have to get back to the plan.” What was the Warriors’ plan? … Jacking up threes. No, I’m not kidding. That was it. Now, if you look back to the home game the Hornets lost to the Warriors, you can see why that was the whole plan. But still. That’s it, guys? That’s all ya got? Too bad Golden State was 3 for 29. I don’t know, at some point, I’d have been thinking about… maybe… changing the plan.
• Chris Paul is a bossy little mofo on those Wired segments, isn’t he? “Hey, Coach, please, I gotta play, I swear I’ll take myself out if I need to come out, please!… Coach, D-West and Peja! Why’re they on the bench?” Haha!
• Halftime feature on David West, plus earlier we also got footage of CP’s high school game where he scored 61 points in honor of his grandfather. Then we had Peja’s Fave Five three point shooters. I said, “Is he allowed to say himself?” Wonder no more, because Peja’s Fave Five were Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Dirk Nowitzki, and indeed, himself. LOL. Guess so.
• Said they definitely think there’ll be a home advantage come playoff time. Said the city of New Orleans has always brought it for the Saints, and they have no doubt they’ll bring it for the Hornets, because they know how to bring the party.

HypeMeter: ABC figures, the Hornets haven’t dropped out of #1 when everyone thought they would, so why not? Yes! You know you want to throw in with us. Hornets, Hornets, Hornets! We can’t wait to see what happens next, either.

CrowdWatch: 17,809, another sellout, and if it’s good enough for ABC, it’s good enough for me.

The 18,280: Hornets, we need to talk. It’s the beginning of the 4th quarter. You’re down 89-81. Deep breath. Whaaaat are you doing?

Hornets: Trying to shave this lead down to under 8 points and failing?

The 18,280: Do you want to win this game?

Hornets: Yes.

The 18,280: No, I mean, do you really want to win this game? Because you’ve got to want it.

Hornets: Look, Chris Paul is sitting because of foul trouble. We’ve got our backups in, and Jannero Pargo, who hasn’t been able to hit the broadside of a barn in approximately the last six games, is running the floor. We’ve got David West, who’s got to be getting tired because we’re pretty sure he’s planning to play the entire 48 minutes. And every time we get it close, they take us right back out of it again.

The 18,280: You remember San Antonio? You remember they were getting physical, and you were getting taken out of the game, both mentally and on the scoreboard. You remember how we decided we weren’t going to let cheap shots and shoddy officiating cause our team to lose the game. And we started to boo. We booed them every time they touched the ball, on every single possession, for the rest of the third quarter and into the fourth. I think we singlehandedly made them throw the ball out of bounds at least three times, so rattled were they by our incessant and hostile booing. You weren’t expecting it, and neither were they. We just wanted to let ya know… we’ll do that again. We’ll do that for you.

Hornets: We admit, we could use the help.

The 18,280: I mean, we will go off. But we need a sign. You’ve got to give us a sign.

Jannero Pargo: 3 points! 2 points! 91-90 Boston.

The 18,280: Right, you want it? We’ll help you get it. But we’re warning you, it’s gonna get LOUD in here.

Celtics: Damn, this sucks. We haven’t scored in over five minutes. We had this game locked down, and now we’re throwing the ball out of bounds, or directly into Bonzi Wells’ hands, and 90% free throw shooters are missing. What the hell is this? It’s like a friggin’ voodoo curse. Why are these fools booing us? What did we even do? WHAT THE HELL?

Hornets: We’re on a 9-0 run! We can win this game.

The 18,280: Damn right you will win this game.

Byron Scott: I want to talk to CP3. If only he could hear me. Oh well. Nice corner shot there.

Hornets: Can I ask you something? Why did you do it?

The 18,280: Well, to be honest, you needed us earlier this season. And we weren’t there for you. New Orleans wasn’t there for you. We feel awful about that, we really do. We’d like to make it up to you. We want you to stay, you know. We’re really trying here. We may come to the party late, but once we’re there, we don’t half-ass it. We’ve sold out the last 8 out of 13 games. We’ve got a 9-game winning streak at home. Tonight was the largest crowd of the season. In the last three weeks, we’ve shown the Jazz, Spurs, Lakers, Rockets, and Celtics that you can’t expect to come into this building and win. We are not who we were in December. And neither are you guys.

Hornets: Ya know, it was just two months ago that every city’s paper was writing articles making jokes about our “home court advantage.” This is… It’s magic.

The 18,280: No. It’s you.

Hornets vs. Celtics. Best of the West vs. Beast of the East.

We’re having dinner and heading out to the Pre-Game Buzzfest early! Hope to see lots of people there for $1/free beer.

I am covered in blue paint. Why, you ask?

Do you have to ask? Check out Section 105 tonight. The back row is rolling out a new sign…

CrowdWatch: You better have tickets, because this one’s been sold out for days.

When I started this blog, it was out of a fit of righteous anger in January. I had just gotten into the Hornets. The Hornets were climbing to the top of the Western Conference. Media coverage of the Hornets’ rise was dismal at best. The Hornets’ new lease with the state had an attendance caveat: 14,735 fans per game, or an out clause could come into effect.

Surely the people of New Orleans would come.

But they didn’t. We’d look up at the stands and take stock, count up the empty sections up top, and say, “Well, should be at least 12,000 tonight. That’s better.” Meanwhile the Hornets made their statement by taking first place in the Southwest Division, then first place in the Western Conference. But what happens when a tree falls in the woods and no one’s there to see it?

I had just started to love the Hornets, and they were going to get taken away from me. It wasn’t fair.

Fast forward.

This is how it happens. Final seconds of the third quarter. 78-72 Hornets with the lead over the Lakers.

Chris Paul to a streaking Pargo. Pargo drops it back to Chandler.

Tyson Chandler soars.

Minutes later, attendance is announced at 18,199.

And as I sat there looking up, into the funnel of motion and screaming and color that was the New Orleans Arena, I thought, “This is it. I might as well stop blogging, because I have nothing more to say. Mission accomplished.”

That moment you were waiting for? That was it.

Oh, NOLA, I thought I knew everything about you. You love football, and you scorn outsiders. You party early, arrive late. How could I forget that you understand hope? You understand doggedly pushing on, and doing the things that no one thought you could do. You understand rising up.

New day.

Hornets 108, Lakers 98. The standings in the unbelievably tight West playoff seeding race juggle themselves a bit. Rockets up, Lakers down, Hornets up. There are 2.5 games separating #1 from #7.

New day.

You go outside in your bare feet, you pick up the paper off the lawn. The sun is beginning to shine on a muggy spring day in Uptown New Orleans, the steam just starting to build in the semi-cool air. The Times Picayune headline declares, “SHOWTIME, N.O. STYLE: Paul, Hornets show Lakers a few things about shooting stars,” an article about Deuce and the Saints relegated to the side column.

And you realize that maybe you do still have something to say after all. Because the Hornets still have plenty more ball to play. And you can’t wait to see what they do next. Anyhow, Ron says we can’t decide we have nothing more to say. Because then he’ll be forced to de-link us. So I have no doubt I’ll find something, as we follow these Hornets to uncharted places.

New day. Where do you go from here?

CrowdWatch: 1,000 past capacity. The people in the folding chairs behind us were gushing about how much fun they had, and asked if we could take their picture with our THE BACK ROW BELIEVES sign.

HypeMeter: Lakers/Hornets would have gotten mega play if it hadn’t been for the Houston Rockets extending their stupid 21-game winning streak against another woeful opponent. F the Rockets’ streak… I’ve read that Kobe Bryant is getting “MVP!” chants in other teams’ arenas lately. Memo to Kobe: That one last night wasn’t for you… Hornets: Feel-Good Story of the Year.

T.P. Watchdog: Hornets are the main story on nola.com this morning. Angry CP3 snarls, “MY BALL! MINE!” at not-angry-enough Kobe Bryant on the front page banner and the front page of the sports section. Chris Paul… so hot right now.

HypeMeter: ALL TIME HIGH.

Seriously. The crowd of 16, 300 booed the Spurs every time they touched the ball from the 3rd quarter on. Every single possession. I think, and I do not like to overstate these kinds of things and give us too much credit, that the arena singlehandedly caused the Spurs to drop the ball out of bounds at least twice. I am pretty sure this actually happened, and I would love to see some TV highlights. It all started when CP went down and got kicked by Bruce Bowen (is there tape on this? oh here, go to town), then actually got called for the foul. The crowd booed. And then they just didn’t stop. The team spun a 7 point lead into 13 and never looked back.

Mo Pete: “Our fans were unbelievable tonight. I’ve never seen an entire team get booed like that since I’ve been in the NBA.” More Hornet quotes!

You know, you gotta think the Spurs weren’t expecting that. I mean, yeah, they’re pros, they’re used to hostile crowds. But when you think about it, our last two games against them have been in San Antonio. They haven’t been to New Orleans since November, when the crowd was, what, 12,000? Yeah. I doubt they were prepared for it. Not from us.

I hope we scared them the hell out of our house.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

In which we find out I should never make predictions again… because I suck at it! Let’s revisit those.

• How many beers will ticktock6 consume at the season ticketholder Beer Garden before her fingers fall off from the cold? 1.5. Was that beer I was swallowing? I couldn’t feel my throat. So cold they closed the beer down early. 0-1.
• Will D West’s bench-sitting outfit involve colors besides black or gray? David West wasn’t on the bench. ?? Therefore, since it is impossible to say whether he wore color while… being wherever he was that wasn’t at the game, I am counting this one as neither wrong nor right. 0-1.
• Will the Back Row Believes sign get on the jumbotron, despite being the awesomest sign in the New Orleans Arena? I told you. 1-1.
• Will Super Hugo drop kick the basketball into ANY SECTION BESIDES 101? There was no Super Hugo tonight. BUT. There was a signed football. GUESS WHICH SECTION THEY THREW IT INTO. I don’t make this stuff up. 2-1.
• Will Birdman dress? He dressed but didn’t play. 2-2.
• How many CP-TC alley oops tonight? Three. But! Julian Wright was out there stealing Tyson’s fun and oh yeah, like, pretty much the whole show, racking up 20 points and 8 rebounds. He also threw down three alley oops, bringing the total to six. So I wasn’t technically right, but who expects Julian Wright? (See title. He’s like the Spanish Inquisition.) 2-3.

I go 2-3. The Hornets go to 42-19.

Chris Paul has 23 pts, 16 assists, 3 steals (Yawn. How routine). Tyson Chandler, out to prove there is more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good looking, adds 19 points, 10 rebounds.

CrowdWatch: 17,225. Sellout! That’s five out of the last eight, dating back to the Memphis game before the All Star break. I love the Hornets, but it is not enough that I love the Hornets. Everyone must love the Hornets. I have declared this. Higher and higher!

There are some… who may find this excessive.

I’m not saying I’m one of them, necessarily. I’m just saying there are some.

(via ESPN the Mag)

Plus, the impending end to the Punk Ass Attendance Clause sooner than we think? In an interview on ABC26, Shinn said he and Ron Forman hoped to hammer out a new deal with the state in the next 10 weeks. Relevant thread here.

Oh wow. How much fun was that game? How much more Julian Wright can we get? Correct answer: there is never too much Julian Wright!

Hornets 116, Hawks 101.

How did I love that game? Let me count the ways.

But first. Birdman sighting on the bench. Accompanied by Bonzi (he remembered to wear clothes!) and D West (even when supposedly dressed up, he’s wearing what looks suspiciously like his usual black shirt and sweats. Were they… dare I say it… dress sweats?)

• Ryan Bowen gets the start… and two nifty steals. And HUGE RANDOM WHITE GUY DUNKS.
• We didn’t think we shot 15 3-pointers and tied a franchise record. I mean, we knew the Hornets made a bunch, but I think it’s not that they took any more than usual… they just lit them up. I did notice we didn’t have a whole lot of those “ILL ADVISED THREE- WHY WHY WHY?” moments.
• The other night the Knicks had the gall to bust out a fake Chandler. Tonight we’ve got the poor man’s West.
• Fourth Quarter. Stupid DanceCam. But wait! They’re dragging out a ladder. There’s apparently something wrong with the net, and it takes a huuuuuuge timeout to fix it. This means… extended DanceCam!
• Hilarity is about to ensue.
• Hilton Armstrong, seemingly chill with his recent benching, keeps popping off the bench and dancing around. I keep wondering aloud when they’re going to start going there with the camera. Because come on. It’s fun just begging to happen. GO THERE, arena people.
• Dude in a suit and tie up in one of the boxes dancing. I think he’s totally a plant, because haven’t we seen that guy before?
• Finally they go to the bench, where Hilton, Julian, and CP are sitting in a row. JuJu is persuaded to get up and “Jump On It.” He dances. The crowd goes crazy. The players fall over laughing.
• The woeful Hawks were even good sports about the silliness, though at this point they’re behind 99-82. At one point, they put the Kiss Cam on Josh Childress and Tyson Chandler. Tyson is sort of standing there smiling up at it and shaking his head, and Childress sees the camera, sticks his tongue out, and lunges toward him. AWESOME.
• The Hornets’ players who are waiting at the scorers’ table to go on the floor, tired of playing with the camera, start shooting the ball around in a circle with each other. Pargo’s dribbling around his legs and over the back and doing all sorts of crazy shit. Mike James spins the ball on his finger for a good long time, and Tyson passes to a little kid courtside, and the kid passes back.
• Julian Wright dunk + Sportscenter = Meant to Be.
• Tyson Chandler: 16 rebounds, 11 of which are offensive. Do you think Atlanta is sitting there tonight thinking they’re missing, let’s see… souls?
• WTF, LeBron. Why you gotta crap all over CP3’s MVP fun like that?
• CrowdWatch: 12, 430. Attendance was crap. But who cares? They missed out.
• I just wrote an NBA recap that included approximately 2% actual basketball! Everyone’s got a talent.