Damn, I said I was gone. I lie, lie, lie.

I’m planning on doing an inventory of any extra Hornets freebies we’ve accumulated over the course of the playoffs. FYI, it’s going to end up going something like, “20 cheer cards, 6 Pejas on Sticks, 2 XL Fan Up! t-shirts, 5 posters, 1 towel, and 4 GEAUX HORNETS car decals.” No, seriously. There is a crawl space behind our entertainment center where we have just been chucking the extras for the last month and a half. If you are an out of town fan and you’d be interested in random Hornets freebies, check back here in the beginning of June. I’ll see if I can try to put something in the mail to you guys.

UPDATE: OK, so I know for a fact I am not going to have a FAN UP t-shirt for everyone who wants one (I’m talking 2-3 tops, all gold, because I was in Tampa for the teal game and because the white one is the only one that is a M and remotely fits me so I’m keeping it), so I wanted to let you know that there are currently several on EBay. I typed in “New Orleans Hornets fan up” and a bunch of them in different colors popped up. I’ll even link you the search.

Oddly similar to the first two, except diagonal and sponsored by Harrahs! I’m assuming they’re going to be laid out on the seats for us like last time (hey, Hornets people, do you listen to us?), free for everyone in attendance. Can you say… GOLD OUT!

We’re also going to get a Buzzfest from 6:00 PM- 8:00 PM (naturally), featuring Bag of Donuts. Game time for Game 5 is 8:30. Geaux Hornets!!

Consider me the rain on the parade. Consider me a hater in the lovefest that is Hornets-fandom. But our mission here at HornetsHype is to destroy all opposition to the perfect Hornets experience. Our mission is not yet complete. Although as Jim Eichenhofer at Hornets.com has pointed out, corporate sponsors are rolling in with the continued successes of the Hornets organization, one is conspicuously missing. It is a recent loss. At the beginning of the season it was there, but only like that sick relative who is just wasting away in a hospital, dying. And then, like a whisper in the night, it faded and was gone. And now, the New Orleans Arena no longer sells Abita Beer.

So I invoke one of the oldest of New Orleans’ traditions: the Jazz Funeral. Grab your instrument, put on your Sunday black best and march for a remembrance of an old and dear friend. Abita Beer.

Some would say this is a gripe better left for the after the season when the team has less to worry about. But let’s focus on of the image of New Orleans as a unique locale; this failure reflects on us all. We used to not only have Abita taps with four different brews at each Bacardi stand last year and early this year, with unique, full-flavored beer (any fans of Coors Light, Miller Light, Bud or Bud Light need not comment), but over the course of the year found these outlets limited to one on the 100 level and one on the 300 level. More than that, Pre-K we had a little Abita Brewpub in the Arena. It was awesome. Abita is awesome. It’s almost always stocked in our fridge and I’d bet it is in most New Orleanians’ fridges. And like many people, when I watch basketball, be it at home or at the arena, I enjoy a quality beer. A quality beer.

So bring back the Abita, New Orleans Arena. Be it trying to better represent Louisiana or just because you love beer. Bring it back because it’s the common sense approach to marketing. It’s a natural tie. Feature seasonal beers all-year round. It would be glorious.

Or at the very least, break out some Abita kegs at the Buzzfests.

[EDIT: no, this was not photoshopped. This happened in Treme. This morning. At dawn.  Unfortunately, the police broke it up.  It was sad.]

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.)

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.

For the love of the Hornets, I beg you.

Stop having them.

No, really. It’s the playoffs. This stuff counts now. The Hornets marketing people need to take a serious look at what they might be doing to the team. As a refresher, let’s take a look at the Hornets’ record this season for Official Watch Parties:

2/23 @ San Antonio… L 89-98

3/16 @ Detroit… L 84-105

3/28 @ Boston… L 92-112

4/11 @ LA… L 104-107

4/25 @ Dallas… L 87-97

So not only do the Hornets have to contend tonight with their record of 0-14 in Dallas’ arena over the last 10 years, they also have to deal with the 0-5 Kiss of Death that is the officially sponsored watch party. Thanks a lot, guys. On Friday I seriously wanted to tackle Brittany, wrestle the mike away from her, and yell, “NO! The watch party for Sunday will NOT be here at Gordon Biersch! It is cancelled! Stay away! GO HOME PEOPLE, GO HOME!”

Now, you haters out there might be saying, “Well, Ticktock, those five games are against quality playoff teams. In fact, with the exception of Dallas, none of those teams finished lower than a #3 seed.”

Whatever. I know better. It’s the Watch Party of Doom. You’ll notice that the Hornets have beaten four out of five of those teams on other nights (the exception is the 0-for against the Pistons this year). The Hornets have even won road games against two of those teams. Shit, they only lost 15 road games this season.

So next you might be saying, “Well, if you feel that way, then don’t go.” But see, that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if I don’t go. I’ve only gone to two. Who attends is not the issue. Also not the issue is the location of the party. The losses have taken place three times at Bruno’s, twice in Covington, and once at G.B. It’s the very existence of the party that causes the Hornets to lose.

For the sake of the series, I hope the Hornets come out firing tonight. That’s a lot of baggage, but I hope they can overcome.

We, for the record, will not be going.

The Hornets better watch out.

All three teams who were down 2-0 won last night. Washington and Toronto did it at home. Houston took a rare one on the road in Utah (but then, Utah had already won a rare two on the road in Houston, so it’s proving to be a weird series). The Hornets have looked impressive in the first two games in the series, but tonight is going to be huge. If Dallas takes one back, it’s a new series.

We’re going to find out who this team is tonight.

Speaking of this team, has anyone noticed that ESPN has been dispensing mad Hornet love lately?

* This article finally praised the Hornets, maybe overmuch, calling them “the most complete team left in the NBA.”

* John Hollinger gives the team almost daily attention.

* David West, Chris Paul, and Josh Howard talk about the influence of their shared college coach, the late Skip Prosser.

Meanwhile, the good ol’ boys who “played in the ’80’s, man” on TNT keep talking Mavs, Mavs, Mavs. Charles Barkley jumped on the CP3 bandwagon briefly a couple of weeks back, then promptly changed his mind and jumped back off. Never mind his ignorant “the Hornets play in a mausoleum” comment, which by the way, was immortalized by our favorite hometown signmakers, Apple and Larry, at the Arena.

So we’ve got the beginning signs of ESPN playing themselves off the $#*t List. And we’ve got TNT sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of Hornets hate…

Speaking of crowds, who caught the Toronto game? Wow. They’re so coordinated. Not only did they manage to all be wearing the proper color t-shirt, but they managed to coherently sing an entire “Ole.” The Hornets crowd is like a disorganized mob in comparison. It’s loud… but it needs work on its cheer coordination.

Finally, there’s a watch party tonight starting at 6:30 at Gordon Biersch, which is sort of the Official Bar of the New Orleans Hornets– if you didn’t know, they broadcast the Hornets postgame call-in show from G.B. after games, plus there’s a discount if you bring your program. You can also ask Joe Block a question on the air. I’m sort of ambivalent on watch parties, since the Hornets are 0-4 this year in games with an official watch party. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to drag my superstitious ass down there.

But then again, everything starts fresh in the playoffs! You should come on down and say hi. I’ll be the one wearing who’s a girl.

The Hornets website broke out some new wallpapers today for the playoffs. (What? You needed a reason other than ME ON THE FRONT PAGE to visit their site? We are not speaking.) They have this one, and one for each of the five starters. I’d totally snag one, if not for the fact that my desktop is Tyson Chandler doing the Birdman in his Southwest Division Champions t-shirt. And well. Y’all know how I feel about Tyson.

Also, don’t forget the pep rally from 6-9 PM tonight on Fulton St. This blog will be there!

Now that’s some hot 5:00 shadow action… Is it me, or does the Peja Stojakovic bobblehead look remarkably like Peja? This thing kills me.

The only thing I find to criticize about it is… why is it running? For a guy whose sole job on offense consists of planting himself in his special magic spot in the corner outside the 3 point line, it’s just funny. They should have made it with its arms stretched over its head, looking down to check its feet.

The PejaHead: Tonight only at New Orleans Arena!

Also featuring: $1 beers outside starting at 5:30, the Free Agent Brass Band, and the Utah Jazz’ abysmal 16-22 road record.

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.