04/22/2009 - 13:09
The Mission: Even the Score
by Devon Jeffreys

With a win tonight, the Hornets can not only even their first round playoff series, but steal home court advantage away from the Denver Nuggets as the series heads for New Orleans.

The Hornets were blown out of the water in the first game, suffering a 113-84 loss at the hands of the hot-shooting Nuggets, but over the last two days, the Hornets have studied tape to tighten the gap between the two teams and the consensus is, if they can take tonight’s game, Game 1 won’t matter a bit, as quoted in the Times-Picayune:

“I don’t know if (the schedule) benefits one team or the other; I think it just gives us more time to prepare,” Hornets coach Byron Scott said. “In that essence, maybe it does benefit us a little more. We saw a lot of things on the tape that we feel we can take advantage of, and we saw a lot of things on both ends of the floor we can do a lot better.

“Having a couple of days to prepare for it obviously helps us. It gives up a little more time to rest and get healthier for Tyson and guys like that. Hopefully, that will show up (tonight).”

Tyson scored six points in game one and had five boards, but only took two shots.

John Reid of the Times-Picayune doesn’t believe the Hornets can expect to win with those types of numbers from TC.

I thought Tyson Chandler played conservative and wasn’t aggressive as he normally is. Because of his inflamed left ankle, it still doesn’t get the lift yet. The Hornets cannot win with him taking only two shots and grabbing five rebounds.

Coach Scott has pinpointed the rebounding as a key for the Hornets, and he’s encouraged both Ty and David West to step it up, as quoted in the Times-Picayune:

“We watched the tape the other day. And that was an emphasis coming into the series, but a shot goes up, and in one instance they had Nene down there, and we had David (West) and Tyson down there, and he gets the ball. Can’t happen. That’s just effort. They outworked us on the board. That’s something we’ve got to take care of.”

New Orleans and Denver tip-off from the Mile High City at 7:30 PST and all the action can be seen live on TNT.

THE ROAD NO LONGER TRAVELED
J.A. Adande posted a piece for ESPN.com last week regarding the proliferation of high school to the pros players in the playoffs this year.

Tyson is one of several high school players currently starting in the postseason and he was quoted in the article:

Kevin Garnett, appropriately, occupies the throne right now. He wasn’t the first to go from preps to the pros—Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby did it in the 1970s—but he ushered in the modern era and has been at it long enough that the league now is stocked with players who patterned themselves after him and Bryant.

“Those guys really carried the torch for all of the guys who followed,” said Hornets center Tyson Chandler, who entered the draft from Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif., in 2001. “I had a Kevin Garnett poster on my wall in high school, because that’s all I wanted to do.”

TWEETS FROM DENVER
Tyson has had a couple of funny tweets from the road in the past 24 hours, including this classic:

 

I just saw a homeless dude with a help sign felt bad.. Then I saw him checking his cell phone behind the sign

RELATED STORIES
New Orleans Hornets to face Denver Nuggets in Game 2 (The Times-Picayune, April 22, 2009)
http://blog.nola.com/hornetsbeat/2009/04/new_orleans_hornets_to_face_de....
Hornets vs. Nuggets Wednesday News Wrap (Hornets247.com, April 22, 2009)
http://www.hornets247.com/blog/2009/04/22/hornets-vs-nuggets-wednesday-n...
New Orleans Hornets Monday Chat (The Times-Picayune, April 20, 2009)
http://blog.nola.com/hornetsbeat/2009/04/new_orleans_hornets_live_chat_1...
High School to NBA players take center stage (ESPN.com, April 17, 2009)
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=hig...

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