duncan228
05-02-2008, 12:39 AM
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA.050208_SpursHornetssider.en.bcd49a57.html
Pro basketball: Hornets another version of Spurs
Mike Finger
Express-News Staff Writer
WESTWEGO, La. — If a visitor who didn’t know any better had wandered into the Alario Center on Thursday afternoon — if he watched the New Orleans Hornets spend the better part of a half-hour attempting bank shots off a wall 30-feet high, then erupt in a spontaneous team-wide game of dodgeball that left everyone in the gym ducking for cover — he’d come to a natural conclusion:
Melvin Ely is crazy.
“This team here,” Ely said, “is another version of the Spurs, in every sense.”
Given the occasional retirement-community vibe of the Spurs’ locker room and the middle-school atmosphere of the Hornets’ practice, this is a difficult premise to accept. But upon closer inspection, Ely might not be as nuts as he sounds.
Ely, after all, is the one man most qualified to make the comparison. He has an NBA championship ring, courtesy of the time he spent last season on and behind the Spurs’ bench. Now he fills a similar spot with the Hornets, who are preparing to meet the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.
And what Ely has noticed might surprise you.
“We’ve got a coach who tells you exactly what he wants,” Ely said, referring to Byron Scott. “We’ve got our own Tony Parker (point guard sensation Chris Paul). We’ve got David West over there, doing what Tim Duncan does. And in the locker room, there’s a bunch of guys with the same attitude as the Spurs have. They don’t care about the credit. They care about winning.”
This, as it turns out, is no coincidence. While other teams around the NBA jumped on the up-tempo, defense-be-danged approach popularized by Phoenix and Golden State, the Hornets tried to build themselves in the Spurs’ image. They share the ball, they trust their playmakers, and they take guarding people seriously.
“We just tried to put a team together that could compete with the likes of San Antonio,” Scott said.
Said West, the power forward who made a point of noting he is “not in Duncan’s class”: “We see the Spurs as the bar.”
The Hornets haven’t reached that bar yet, but they’re closer than most would’ve expected them to be at this point. Thanks to an MVP-caliber season from Paul — the second-year guard who bettered Parker with regular-season averages of 21.1 points, 11.6 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game (compared with Parker’s 18.8, 6.0 and 3.2) — New Orleans finished first in the Southwest Division. West, who averages 20.6 points per game, and Peja Stojakovic (16.4 points per game), did their parts to fill in the Hornets’ own version of a “big three.”
Will it stand up against the real thing?
“Well,” Hornets forward Bonzi Wells said, “we feel our scheme has a better chance against them than the Suns’ did.”
As for the loose, playground-style environment? Paul said it’s not about a lack of focus, but rather about bringing “a sense of normalcy” to the playoffs.
And Ely said it’s not as different from the Spurs as one might think. He said he has fond memories of paintball fights with Duncan that were not unlike Thursday’s dodgeball outbreak.
“Those guys have fun,” Ely said of the Spurs. “They just do a better job of hiding it.”
Pro basketball: Hornets another version of Spurs
Mike Finger
Express-News Staff Writer
WESTWEGO, La. — If a visitor who didn’t know any better had wandered into the Alario Center on Thursday afternoon — if he watched the New Orleans Hornets spend the better part of a half-hour attempting bank shots off a wall 30-feet high, then erupt in a spontaneous team-wide game of dodgeball that left everyone in the gym ducking for cover — he’d come to a natural conclusion:
Melvin Ely is crazy.
“This team here,” Ely said, “is another version of the Spurs, in every sense.”
Given the occasional retirement-community vibe of the Spurs’ locker room and the middle-school atmosphere of the Hornets’ practice, this is a difficult premise to accept. But upon closer inspection, Ely might not be as nuts as he sounds.
Ely, after all, is the one man most qualified to make the comparison. He has an NBA championship ring, courtesy of the time he spent last season on and behind the Spurs’ bench. Now he fills a similar spot with the Hornets, who are preparing to meet the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.
And what Ely has noticed might surprise you.
“We’ve got a coach who tells you exactly what he wants,” Ely said, referring to Byron Scott. “We’ve got our own Tony Parker (point guard sensation Chris Paul). We’ve got David West over there, doing what Tim Duncan does. And in the locker room, there’s a bunch of guys with the same attitude as the Spurs have. They don’t care about the credit. They care about winning.”
This, as it turns out, is no coincidence. While other teams around the NBA jumped on the up-tempo, defense-be-danged approach popularized by Phoenix and Golden State, the Hornets tried to build themselves in the Spurs’ image. They share the ball, they trust their playmakers, and they take guarding people seriously.
“We just tried to put a team together that could compete with the likes of San Antonio,” Scott said.
Said West, the power forward who made a point of noting he is “not in Duncan’s class”: “We see the Spurs as the bar.”
The Hornets haven’t reached that bar yet, but they’re closer than most would’ve expected them to be at this point. Thanks to an MVP-caliber season from Paul — the second-year guard who bettered Parker with regular-season averages of 21.1 points, 11.6 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game (compared with Parker’s 18.8, 6.0 and 3.2) — New Orleans finished first in the Southwest Division. West, who averages 20.6 points per game, and Peja Stojakovic (16.4 points per game), did their parts to fill in the Hornets’ own version of a “big three.”
Will it stand up against the real thing?
“Well,” Hornets forward Bonzi Wells said, “we feel our scheme has a better chance against them than the Suns’ did.”
As for the loose, playground-style environment? Paul said it’s not about a lack of focus, but rather about bringing “a sense of normalcy” to the playoffs.
And Ely said it’s not as different from the Spurs as one might think. He said he has fond memories of paintball fights with Duncan that were not unlike Thursday’s dodgeball outbreak.
“Those guys have fun,” Ely said of the Spurs. “They just do a better job of hiding it.”