First off, sorry to my fellow PtR folks that I haven't been contributing to these boards too much in the last few days.  They're called finals and they suck (especially in the business school at Texas A&M).  I've been reading and enjoying everyone's comments, though, (well, except GS, of course.  But enough about me, on to the real purpose of this post.

Really, it's about the new orleans hornets basketball team as a whole.  As a Spurs fan, there are three categories of teams for me:  teams I loathe, teams I respect, and teams about which I don't give a rip.  Teams like the lakers, jazz, mavericks, and suns fall into the loathing category, of course.  Up until now, teams I respected included the rockets, pistons, and hornets.  I was impressed by the resiliency of the city of new orleans after Katrina (which hit close to home for me as I used to live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast).  I was impressed by how tightly the big easy clung to it's sports teams.  They wrenched their hornets back from OKC, and they even claimed their saints back from the Alamodome (don't get me wrong, I'm dying for an NFL team as much as any other SA sports fan, just not under those circumstances!).  Then, a hornets team that had been the NBA's definition of mediocrity for years suddenly gained new confidence from a young point guard playing with poise beyond his years.  I never watched any hornets games this season, but when I found out that chris paul was a grad of the great TIM DUNCAN's school, I immediately assumed that he was a keeper.  I mean, how bad could he be if he even partially imitated Wake Forest's greatest roundball alum?

Needless to say, I had high hopes for this series.  I was looking forward to a humble display of terrific basketball on both sides.  Even if the Spurs lost, I wouldn't mind if it was to a team that showed they were deserving in both word and deed of dethroning the defending champs.

In short, the hornets have disappointed me on all fronts.  When byron scott, with his smug smile, is far and away the classiest guy on the team, you have a problem.  From paul's egregious DEAD BALL flops (a first for floppers foreign and domestic, by the way), to the normally mild-mannered peja sto-whatever-his-name-is' off-ball antics with Bowen (don't think I wasn't watching you, you conniving jerk), I have been completely disenchanted with the hornets as a team.  I honestly believed paul would demonstrate at least a modicum of the class that his elder statesmen model their games after, but apparently I've been hoping for too much.  I've never seen a point guard with such a deceptively foul attitude.  He's been actively mongering all-out war on the floor, yet he's still sainted (pardon the pun) by the media, and the Spurs (predictably) are continually vilified.  I swear, I've never seen such a uniting of the media against a defending champion.  It's a crying shame, and the league should be ashamed of allowing the demonizing of the Spurs to get to this point.  The miami freaking heat got more praise in 2007 as they were getting swept in the first round than the Spurs, who dismantled a ridiculously talented suns team that was custom-built to beat them.

If the hornets beat my Spurs, I will be the first to congratulate them on a job well done.  Their chance to earn my respect, however, has been irrevocably lost, and if the Spurs can't do it, I hope another team (I don't care who) kicks the ever living crap out of them.  Not because I hate new orleans, but because the hornets have no class.

Great win in Game 3, Spurs.  Let's tie it up in Game 4!

GO SPURS GO!!!  BTHO (Beat The Hell Outta) new orleans!