Hornets Hype

… Speaking of Peja on a Stick, and when are we not this week? I JUST saw the new flash intro on the Hornets website for the Spurs series, and I almost spit water all over my laptop. I missed it the first time. Just wait for it to load, and don’t do what I did at first and click right through to the regular site.

Just. Wait.

Ball Don’t Lie wanted some of that Peja on a Stick today. (What should I say? We got BDLed? Doesn’t quite lend itself to verbmaking the way “We got TrueHooped” does.) Coincidentally, they’ve also picked Hornets in 7. And SI’s got Hornets in 6. See, now, the reason I was so PO-ed about everyone picking the Mavs and giving the Hornets no love was because, hello, the #7 over the #2 seed? Like the Hornets tripped one morning and fell into the #2 seed in the West by accident. But the Hornets only have home court against the Spurs by virtue of a tiebreaker, and the Spurs are the defending champions (even though they only win in odd years). Just when I wasn’t gonna be particularly militant about the national media picking the Hornets to lose this one… go figure, they start getting all trendy and picking them to win.

And finally, via the T.P. and falling under the broad heading of “Only In New Orleans”…

Who’s got their ride decorated for the playoffs?? I’ve been seeing more and more Hornets gear around town. The “GEAUX HORNETS” decals have been given away free at every official Hornets playoff event I’ve been to in the last three weeks. If you still haven’t gotten your hands on one, I’d investigate the Buzzfest on Saturday night. I saw some there on Tuesday. I also picked up about four at the Watch Party (what? those people won’t take no for an answer when they’re tossing free swag).

If you’ve got a Hornets ride, send me a picture at ticktock6@gmail.com, and I’ll put it in my album and on the site! (But I doubt you can beat mine. I mean, my car is friggin’ teal.)

Huge breaking news. Straight from the Hornets website:

May 3: Hornets vs. Spurs, 9:00 p.m.
Giveaway: Gold “Fan Up New Orleans” T-Shirt, courtesy of Toyota (everyone in attendance)
Peja Stojakovic Head (everyone in attendance)

Yes! Seriously! No joke.

Oh wow, so let me get this straight. We’re going to have CP3’s “Gold Out” on Saturday… the game is at 9 PM, meaning everyone will be Jazzfesting/partying in the street all evening beforehand… and… and Pejas on sticks! This is almost too much for HornetsHype to handle.

The Hornets are also not messing around with the Buzzfest. Dollar beers will start flowing at the fine, fresh hour of 6:30. Except if you’re a season ticketholder. Then you’ll get the only thing better than a dollar beer. And what’s the only thing better than a dollar beer?

Yeah, you know it.

(Edited: This is just indicative of the kind of fan I am. mW just walked through the door and I said I just posted huge breaking news. He was like, “Chris Paul is MVP?” I was like, “Dude, Peja on a STICK!” … yeah. It’s a good thing y’all don’t come here for deeply compelling statistical analysis.)

… that the Hornets have a Giant Peja Head wallpaper up on their site.

Don’t expect any graphical wonders. It is exactly what it sounds like: a giant smiling Peja head exactly like the ones that run around on sticks. So if you can’t get enough Peja On a Stick, this is totally for you! (Hmmm… it occurs to me the thing is probably high res enough that if you have the right printer and special paper, I dare say you could use the image to craft your very own mini-Peja On a Stick…)

Click here to check it out, and the other playoff wallpapers too. (Thanks to Mark for alerting me to this little morsel of greatness.)

Yesterday we got TrueHooped. (Since I was home from work sick, that was a fun activity for my afternoon… just reloading the page and watching the traffic double, then triple.) Which is kind of the be-all and end-all of NBA blogging. The good news was that the site dealt with the extra traffic smoothly, despite my cheapskate ass hosting three domains on one account. It was a good day all around.

And then the Hornets made it better.

Could you have scripted a better first playoff series for Chris Paul? Old Guard vs. New Upstarts. Falling Back vs. Rising Up. And David West with another 25-point “Oh What? You Thought I Was the Fluke All Star?” night. (As my 7th grade class would say, “That’s cold.”) And no one but Hornets fans could have predicted how Jannero Pargo has gone off in this series. In fact, most media experts predicted that #7 seed Dallas would win the series, with virtually no one saying the Hornets in less than 7 games.

Honestly, I saw this happening. Not, you understand, as a definite, but as a probability I could see unfolding. “Seriously?” I thought. “If the Hornets win this series, it won’t be in 7.” I think, realistically, this series was over after Game One. Yeah, yeah, yeah, “you say that now,” but think about it. It was how the team came out after the half, down 12 points. And as they played, as Chris Paul dismantled the Mavs and took the game over, it was like watching a team realize they belong. And once you’ve got that, you don’t let it go.

If you’ve watched this team all season, you know they were capable, young, and hungry. But the thing is, most people haven’t seen this team. Until last week, the Hornets had only had 5 or 6 nationally televised games.

Well, you’ve seen them now. Get used to it.

Get used to the names. Get used to the faces. These are the faces you’ll be seeing over and over again for the next five years.

As SLAM Online wrote this morning:

Has there ever been a franchise that’s been a complete afterthought, draft one player and then all of a sudden they are a powerhouse. Chris Paul is (insert over the top praise). The Hornets season has been a smashing success. No matter what happens from here on out. The worst thing that can happen to them is they learn hard lessons. And that’s not even a bad thing.

“It’s not a blog. It’s a movement.” That’s what we here at HornetsHype like to say. Well, the movement has picked up a lot of strength. It seems as if our goals–and the team’s goals– are being accomplished every day. But I’m not going to stop blogging.

And the Hornets aren’t going to stop playing.

New Orleans Hornets vs. San Antonio Spurs. Game One. Saturday, May 2, 2008. 9 PM.

Higher and Higher.

You might say the fans were slow to embrace the Hornets. You may say the Hornets organization had a lot to make up for after Oklahoma City. But as we stepped out of the arena after the Hornets’ 99-94 series clinching win, the first thing that greeted us was the sound of a brass band… and a big crowd gathering for a second line, dancing and waving towels around. I thought, “You got something right.”

I love New Orleans. I love the Hornets.

Quote of the Night: “But Bonzi can’t be without his headband. He’ll lose his ninja powers!”

Runner-Up:

The lady next to mW: “Um, I think you might need to go to anger management after this game.”

mW: “No, I’ll be fine if we win.”

Chant of the Night: So there was a fan in 118 who had a sign that said “Stop the Flop” and had a picture of a stop sign and a #41 blue jersey. They put it up on the jumbotron just as Dirk was shooting free throws after a particularly flailing flop, and the crowd just picked it up and ran with it. “STOP THE FLOP! STOP THE FLOP!” Awesome.

OK, so Sunday night on the postgame press conference, Chris Paul said he wants to see the arena in GOLD.

This is gonna be one of those moments when I’m going to bitch about the Hornets organization. I love ‘em, but… remember how I said we needed to organize the fans better? This is a prime example. OK, scratch that. Except the part about loving the Hornets. See the bottom of the post for an explanation.

Because the players said they wanted gold. Tyson just said it again on his blog today. And CP3’s quote was in the paper, but people might have missed that. Yet… the giveaway tonight is thunderstix. Now I’m not saying it’s reasonable to get 20,000 t-shirts printed on short notice because the players want gold and not teal, but… you know, they could have sent around an email or posted something on the site telling people definitively what to wear. Complicating the issue is the fact that the “Fan Up New Orleans!” shirts are teal. And the previous giveaway was black. And prior to that, white. See the problem? People are not gonna wear the gold gear if they don’t have any (unless you want to see a sea of LSU), and people are not gonna wear a solid color at all unless it’s splashed all over town that they’re supposed to. I think whenever they do t-shirts they should put them on the seats so people realize they have to put one on.

So. Will the fans pull this together to look impressive tonight?

I’m gonna go with, “Ha. No.”

At least we can yell.

Update: I’m told (check out the comments) that CP surprised everyone with that remark, and the staff was scrambling around looking for 18,000 gold shirts on short notice. So… I apologize for the criticism. At least they tried! SO. What to wear? I’m going to wear my teal TC #6 jersey over yellow, and call it a compromise.

Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie thinks Kidd should be suspended for his flagrant foul on Jannero Pargo (below). What do I think? I think Pargo’s lucky he has damn good reflexes, or he could have broken his neck. That looked flat-out terrifying, before they showed the replay and I realized he hadn’t actually hit his head. But, for the purposes of the Hornets, I don’t care if Kidd’s suspended or not. Pargo wasn’t hurt, and he bounced back up, even having the presence of mind to calm JuJu (who looked like he was about to hit any Mav within two feet) down and pull him away.

It’s not like the Mavs would really miss Kidd’s 3 points anyway…

Bonus!Hype 1: I guess my mind hasn’t taken up residence in the gutter yet today, because I didn’t notice anything funny about the David West photo at the top of ESPN… but apparently other people did. Haha…

Bonus!Hype 2: If you go over to SLAM Online, today’s playoff wrapup has the headline “Wake Up Mr. West!” Except they’re referring to Delonte West’s big tiebreaker for Cleveland. Oh, see now, that’s not going to fly. Sound bite-stealing wannabe D. Wests will not be tolerated on this blog.

I could watch that again and again.

Oh, and the Hornets win 97-84 to take the 3-1 series lead.

HUGE game. HUGE win in Dallas.

Goodbye, Jason Kidd. We might not be seeing you again.

How did the Hornets overcome the double Kiss of Death that was Dallas’ arena and the Hornets watch party? They made a few superstitious changes of their own, attempting to counteract the heaps of bad karma… by busting out the yellow jerseys. Good idea, guys.

And a good night.