Sports 4 Dorks

Ah, predictions. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
But let’s do. Here’s how BDL sees things unfolding in the Hornets-Spurs Western Conference Semifinals …

Kelly Dwyer: You’ll hear a lot of this today: "I’m done with picking against ____." And the blank spot is usually filled with either one of these two teams, curiously and consistently underestimated by myself and dozens of others over the course of the last few months.

Sure, there were caveats to that estimation. I kept telling readers in BtB toward the end of the regular season that we’ve yet to see the best from the Spurs this season. And nobody’s been banging the Chris Paul bongo harder than I.

And yet, there it was, a few weeks ago: Mavs in six, Suns in seven. Certainty is the place you go when you’re tired of thinking, and I didn’t want to be accused of being tired of thinking, and I also kind of like Dirk and Nash. Whiffed on that one.

So don’t get angry at talking heads and scribes for picking either team just because they hadn’t gone with them in the first round. Ignorance should never be a defense, but it works here because the two teams that we were ignorant about are actually playing against each other.

Chris Paul is not tall, but he is long. He can get beat on defense quite badly at times, but he can also reach around a screen, keep up with pick-and-pop point guards, and Tony Parker won’t have anywhere near as easy a time with things in the second round. The trick for Tony is to cut to the front of the basket (you heard me) when Paul roams defensively, to look for the quick pass and finish.

On Paul’s end, he’s going to have to keep the floaters coming, but he’s also going to have to get used to perfecting them from farther out. What was once an eight-foot floater against Jason Kidd and the Mavs will now be pushed out to the free throw line (at best) and beyond. The Spurs will not let you have three-point looks that are worth a darn, but they also won’t let you get to the rim.

You have to be proficient from that soft underbelly that everyone keeps telling teams to attack when they play the Spurs: the 15-19 foot range. It’s a miserable shot, because you never get fouled taking it, you’re going to hit 45 percent at best, and you only get two points. But in a game that ends up at 89-85, you need to hit it. Consistently.

And David West hits it. So does Jannero Pargo, after a thousand dribbles. So does Peja Stojakovic, after that Larry Bird-stepback. And so can Chris Paul, if he realizes what the defense will allow him to have.

Meanwhile, defensively, the Hornets can hang. Morris Peterson, a fellow lefty, knows which way Manu Ginobili likes to drive. Tyson Chandler helps like no man, and Paul can take over games sometimes. I’m not going to make some snarky comment about guarding Bruce Bowen, because it’s often tough to guard Bruce Bowen — San Antonio sets a batch of screens for that corner trey, but Peja Stojakovic is cognizant (which, I believe, is "Stojakovic" spelled backwards) and long enough to hold his own.

I’m not sure of it, but after days of pondering, it’s the closest thing I’ve come to certainty. That is, to say, real far away, but …

Hornets in seven.

*************

J.E. Skeets: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so …

Free mini-Stojakovic-heads to everyone in attendance tomorrow night? There is no way they can lose at home!

Hornets in seven.

But what do you guys think? Let’s hear your predictions in the comments.