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A little arrogant to presume we've got this in the bag, but we are all probably thinking along these lines to some degree.
I don't want to see it bite us in the ass, time to nut up and get this series.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/c....f0995f84.html
Buck Harvey: The Hornets have a day to get older
San Antonio Express-News
I give the Hornets a chance. Their coach is experienced, at least.
They also will be playing at home Tuesday, and maybe more voodoo will come out of those fire extinguishers.
Maybe, too, the Hornets can find the care-free at ude they had in January when they came to San Antonio and routed the Spurs. Then, they stood around afterward watching replays on a television in the AT&T visitor’s locker room. When one of them dunked, they hollered the way high-school kids do.
But a New Orleans recovery seems unlikely after what happened the past two games, culminating with Sunday’s pointed clinic. Then, the defending champions lived up to their le.
And the Hornets lived up to theirs.
The Hornets will tell themselves they are fine, and Chris Paul started Sunday night. “No time to panic,” he said.
Paul will lean on a few things. One is that the Hornets badly beat the Spurs in New Orleans.
Still, Tuesday will be the biggest playoff game of Paul’s life. For Robert Horry, it will be what — the 56th-biggest?
“About in that range,” said Horry, who has tied Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for most playoff appearances in NBA history.
Horry said everyone tends to exaggerate experience and that this is still basketball. He’s not wrong on that. As Gregg Popovich often jokes about the media’s ability to switch themes nightly, the Spurs are old when they lose and experienced when they win.
But what happened Sunday is not an accident. The Spurs took apart the Hornets’ defense while their own solidified. This is what happens when you’ve survived on the playoff road in Phoenix and Detroit and Salt Lake City, and you’ve swept one NBA Finals and played a Game 7 in another.
This is also what happens when you have Bruce Bowen. He continued to carry around Peja Stojakovic as New Orleans fans do — with his head on a stick. Stojakovic is 5 of 16 since the switch.
The various Spurs big men have a better read on David West now. Paul is being held to numbers associated with humans. And Jannero Pargo — the Jannero Pargo — is the one taking 14 shots.
The Hornets? “Defensively, we were all over the place tonight,” West said.
A healthy Tim Duncan had something to do with that. Everything about him looked different — eyes, body language, shooting percentage.
One sequence in the third quarter cemented the evening. Then, Duncan drove, taking a Tyson Chandler hip, and scored. That gave the Spurs a three-point play and Chandler his fourth foul.
Byron Scott opted to stick with Chandler, figuring he had no choice with the Spurs out to an 18-point lead. But less than a minute later, Manu Ginobili drove and drew Chandler’s fifth.
When Chandler sits, Scott doesn’t have much else. He works with a mix of rookies and spare parts. Melvin Ely is one of those.
When the Spurs traded Eric Williams for him a year ago, Popovich was blunt about the impact of the trade. “We traded one practice player for another,” he said then.
Ely never played a minute for the Spurs in the playoffs a year ago. And yet he has defended Duncan in this series.
Instead of Ely, the Spurs brought in Horry and his record-tying credentials for experience. Again, it’s no accident Horry ended the first half with a jumper, some smart defense on West and a tip on an offensive rebound.
In the fourth quarter, Horry played as everyone else did, mostly for the exercise. Scott pulled his core guys to start the fourth.
Popovich made similar subs utions, making for the perfect ending to the Spurs’ night. No Spur played more than 35 minutes, critical with the next game Tuesday. Being tired is the best way for the Spurs to go from experienced to old.
So now the series is tied, and it isn’t. Once, the Hornets won the division and flexed their power, and once, they eliminated Dallas and saw themselves ready for anything. Now they have reason to wonder if an entirely new season has been introduced to them.
I give the Hornets a chance, all right.
In a few years.
A little arrogant to presume we've got this in the bag, but we are all probably thinking along these lines to some degree.
I don't want to see it bite us in the ass, time to nut up and get this series.
Spurs F Robert Horry played in his 237th playoff game Sunday, tying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the NBA record. Horry called tying Abdul-Jabbar’s record “a dream come true.”
Wow, powerful stuff from Buck...let's all just hope it comes to fruition.
Arrogant or not..it sounds right to me.
The series is like that of Detroit and Philadelphia. No one expected Philly to be ahead at that series but they did.
Same thing happened to Boston and Atlanta. No one ever dreamed that they would play a 7th game in that series.
This will end like the two series above...with the underdog down under and humbled.
ROFL. That was a classic line by Buck.This is also what happens when you have Bruce Bowen. He continued to carry around Peja Stojakovic as New Orleans fans do — with his head on a stick.
Someone needs to photoshop that.
Oh and yeah, Buck is going to his bully routine that he's used this year. It's easy to start acting like a hardazz writer when you are a writer for the defending champs.
I guess Im just a homer, but Buck is pretty much right on with me.
The line about Peja though is classic
Man, Bowen owns. I fully expect him to play until he's 50, since he only really plays one end, but after that, who will be our lockdown defender? I know Ime is good, but he's not exactly a spring chicken himself.
Peja is sick with Bowen us..
Peja is sick with Bowen us..
if we win game 5, its all over for the hornets
if we dont win? we will beat you in 7
That was a classic line. Nice.
OK, that's in' funny.
He predicted the same for the Suns series when it was far from over but it looked like the Spurs had the edge. I think the knows what he's talking about.
I agree with Buck. We win on Tuesday night and this series is over. We take game 6 -does any of you think if we have a close out game at home we'll lose?
Something that I've always felt is that once the Spurs figure out how to defend the Hornets and then turn up the pressure this series changes dramatically in our favor. Hornets are going to have many playoffs victories but in years to come just not agianst the Spurs this year.
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