Nets vs. Hornets Re-Cap 3/1/09
Guest post by Drew.
Getting to the Izod Center is such a trifle to get to, it’s no wonder the Nets can’t sell the place out or get their home crowd riled enough to get a home record better than 13-15. By the time you deal with the traffic, get anally raped for parking (12 bucks!) and walk there, you’re ready for a stiff drink and a nap. So what’s worse than the trek from the Giants Stadium parking lot in the freezing cold? Getting a call from A&E telling you he overslept and he’s on the way to his bus and still has to get the tickets from his office. I should’ve expected that from the bastard but I digress, it’s his birthday and the tickets aren’t costing me anything. His being late allowed this story to happen:
I’m standing near the will call station and two middle-aged ladies walk by wearing #12 Hornets jerseys. I’m wearing my Standard shirt/jersey and some people are even wearing old school LJ-Charlotte jerseys (Is it cool to wear the jerseys of a departed franchise? I suppose but I don’t think I’ll see any Durant-Sonics jerseys in OKC anytime soon) but really two people both wearing Hilton Armstrong’s jersey? You either have to be his best friend or a direct relative to wear the jersey of a player who’s currently losing minutes to Sean Marks. Eventually, a young man with two kids shows up also wearing Armstrong’s number. I ask if they’re friends with Hilton and the man tells me the one woman is his mother. I say Hilton’s having a good year coming off the bench and I hope they enjoy the game before saying goodbye. Two hours later, I’ll feel bad for Hilton’s Mom because he didn’t touch the floor all game (DNP-Coach’s decision I discover later) .
Now for the actual game. We missed the first quarter but judging by the score, didn’t really miss much. I’ve watched a good amount of both the Nets (cus they’re local) and the Hornets (cus I stalk Chris Paul) and if there’s any one problem with either team, it’s that they never seem to have a definitive game plan. The Hornets are overly reliant on Paul and if things don’t go smoothly or he gets in foul trouble, things hit the breaks and Byron Scott says his big men have been suffering from “fat lady syndrome”. The Nets revolve around VC and Devin Harris, who’s stepped it up a lot this year, but if they aren’t hitting their shots, the rest of the team fails to step up because they’re young.
So the game tended to vary between a bunch of high notes and plenty of low ones. The Hornets dominated, by 13 at one point on a healthy diet of Chandler alley-oops and moving the ball through Stojakovic, West and Butler for the bulk of their offense. But the Hornets floundered and the Nets came back through the 3-point shooting of Jarvis Hayes and VC while Harris made it a point to take on Paul throughout the game, which he did for 26 pts., 14 assts. In the pre-season, Harris claimed that he was in the top 8 of point guards in the league, with Paul clearly at the top, after breaking out this season, he said he’s now in the top 5. I asked A&E if that’s true, who are the other three? I say it’s Williams, Nash and Billups. Despite his love for Nash, A&E says Nash definitely isn’t in the top 5 anymore although he’s still bringing the noise and the funk and Billups neither, but look at the Nuggets and Pistons’ records and tell me he isn’t. We agree Calderon and Rose will probably replace both of them in a year or two, then got distracted by the game and never got back around to it. What about Tony Parker you might say? Well that’s because I don’t respect the French douche, that’s why. In other news, Antonio Daniels is improving as CP’s backup and Sean Marks is my favorite goofy white boy in the NBA right now. He hustles constantly, gets dirty down low, he’s from New Zealand and he’s 34 so he looks like he should be playing in an old man league on Wednesdays in a high-school gym. We haven’t seen a guy like this since Chris Dudley.
Anyway, each team did a great job of trying to not win the game. The Nets employed a lousy zone defense in the fourth which the Hornets missed a lot of open jumpers in but thanks to West crashing the boards and The Standard managing the game well, they overcame their deficit to win the game. The Nets are still a great team to watch and will be even better once their young guys get more comfortable or in Sean Williams’ case, stop being stupid. Lopez, Yi, CDR (hopefully Ryan Anderson) and are all amazing building blocks to put around Harris, it’s all about getting value out of trading VC this summer (just one of many that are sure to move this summer, including AI and Richard Jefferson). The Hornets, meanwhile, pulled out a squeaker but are still in a tight race for the playoffs. If only they’d give Hilton some more minutes!
Getting to the Izod Center is such a trifle to get to, it’s no wonder the Nets can’t sell the place out or get their home crowd riled enough to get a home record better than 13-15. By the time you deal with the traffic, get anally raped for parking (12 bucks!) and walk there, you’re ready for a stiff drink and a nap. So what’s worse than the trek from the Giants Stadium parking lot in the freezing cold? Getting a call from A&E telling you he overslept and he’s on the way to his bus and still has to get the tickets from his office. I should’ve expected that from the bastard but I digress, it’s his birthday and the tickets aren’t costing me anything. His being late allowed this story to happen:
I’m standing near the will call station and two middle-aged ladies walk by wearing #12 Hornets jerseys. I’m wearing my Standard shirt/jersey and some people are even wearing old school LJ-Charlotte jerseys (Is it cool to wear the jerseys of a departed franchise? I suppose but I don’t think I’ll see any Durant-Sonics jerseys in OKC anytime soon) but really two people both wearing Hilton Armstrong’s jersey? You either have to be his best friend or a direct relative to wear the jersey of a player who’s currently losing minutes to Sean Marks. Eventually, a young man with two kids shows up also wearing Armstrong’s number. I ask if they’re friends with Hilton and the man tells me the one woman is his mother. I say Hilton’s having a good year coming off the bench and I hope they enjoy the game before saying goodbye. Two hours later, I’ll feel bad for Hilton’s Mom because he didn’t touch the floor all game (DNP-Coach’s decision I discover later) .
Now for the actual game. We missed the first quarter but judging by the score, didn’t really miss much. I’ve watched a good amount of both the Nets (cus they’re local) and the Hornets (cus I stalk Chris Paul) and if there’s any one problem with either team, it’s that they never seem to have a definitive game plan. The Hornets are overly reliant on Paul and if things don’t go smoothly or he gets in foul trouble, things hit the breaks and Byron Scott says his big men have been suffering from “fat lady syndrome”. The Nets revolve around VC and Devin Harris, who’s stepped it up a lot this year, but if they aren’t hitting their shots, the rest of the team fails to step up because they’re young.
So the game tended to vary between a bunch of high notes and plenty of low ones. The Hornets dominated, by 13 at one point on a healthy diet of Chandler alley-oops and moving the ball through Stojakovic, West and Butler for the bulk of their offense. But the Hornets floundered and the Nets came back through the 3-point shooting of Jarvis Hayes and VC while Harris made it a point to take on Paul throughout the game, which he did for 26 pts., 14 assts. In the pre-season, Harris claimed that he was in the top 8 of point guards in the league, with Paul clearly at the top, after breaking out this season, he said he’s now in the top 5. I asked A&E if that’s true, who are the other three? I say it’s Williams, Nash and Billups. Despite his love for Nash, A&E says Nash definitely isn’t in the top 5 anymore although he’s still bringing the noise and the funk and Billups neither, but look at the Nuggets and Pistons’ records and tell me he isn’t. We agree Calderon and Rose will probably replace both of them in a year or two, then got distracted by the game and never got back around to it. What about Tony Parker you might say? Well that’s because I don’t respect the French douche, that’s why. In other news, Antonio Daniels is improving as CP’s backup and Sean Marks is my favorite goofy white boy in the NBA right now. He hustles constantly, gets dirty down low, he’s from New Zealand and he’s 34 so he looks like he should be playing in an old man league on Wednesdays in a high-school gym. We haven’t seen a guy like this since Chris Dudley.
Anyway, each team did a great job of trying to not win the game. The Nets employed a lousy zone defense in the fourth which the Hornets missed a lot of open jumpers in but thanks to West crashing the boards and The Standard managing the game well, they overcame their deficit to win the game. The Nets are still a great team to watch and will be even better once their young guys get more comfortable or in Sean Williams’ case, stop being stupid. Lopez, Yi, CDR (hopefully Ryan Anderson) and are all amazing building blocks to put around Harris, it’s all about getting value out of trading VC this summer (just one of many that are sure to move this summer, including AI and Richard Jefferson). The Hornets, meanwhile, pulled out a squeaker but are still in a tight race for the playoffs. If only they’d give Hilton some more minutes!
posted by Gen at
8:54 AM
2 Comments:
I play as the Hornets on NBA 2k9 often, and Sean Marks may be the worst player if in the history of video game basketball.
Sean Marks is like the ant-Roenick. He's not good in the game because programmers can't appreciate the intangibles he brings. He's actually much better in real life.
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