NEW YORK -- Chris Paul is impatient. He hates to lose. He admitted as much Monday night after his parents watched his team lose to the Knicks, a team that might as well have slapped a 10-story banner on Madison Square Garden that said, "Gone fishin' 'til 2010."
How embarrassing. The Hornets lose in Boston, then let the Knicks dump 117 points on them in the second night of a back-to-back East Coast swing that has finally exposed this franchise as the decaying corpse that it is.
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| 'The thing that's killing us right now is our defense,' Chris Paul (3) says. (Getty Images) |
"Right now our concern is just getting the defense taken care of," Paul said after his 32 points and 13 assists weren't enough in a 117-111 loss to the Knicks. "The playoffs are a long, long way for us right now. We're trying to stay above water."
That's hard for Paul to do when he sees his friends -- LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, to name two -- going deep into the playoffs with teams that have been more adept at defending the pick-and-roll and far more committed to spending the money needed to win. Along with the Knicks (to whom money has been no object and no use), the Lakers and Celtics are in a class by themselves when it comes to exceeding the luxury tax and winning championships. Now, even small-market teams like Orlando, San Antonio and Denver have become taxpayers because they see the possibility of a championship in their not-so distant future.
"I'm envious," Paul said. "I'm very envious. Those guys have been where I want to get to. This is my fifth year in the league and I'm not trying to wait until I'm an old veteran in this league trying to win a championship. We're trying to win now. Whatever we have to do to win, we've got to do now."
Yet Paul goes about his business with the likes of Morris Peterson and Hilton Armstrong. One of the best potential recipients of Paul's assists, rookie Marcus Thornton, languishes on the bench because Byron Scott wants the team to defend first and score later. At this rate, though, there won't be a later.
Paul, of course, clarified that he doesn't envy the talent some of his rivals have around them, but rather where they've been. But the two go together, the way Paul and Tyson Chandler used to go together. That was supposed to have been the winning combination for the Hornets, along with David West's rugged post play, Scott's discipline and James Posey's 3-point shooting and lockdown defense on the wing.
"The thing that's killing us right now is our defense," Paul said, trying to stay in the moment and turn the conversation toward what can be done with the teammates he has. "We can't stop teams. ... I think our biggest issue right now is trust. Because when you're defending a guy, you've got to trust that your teammates have your back. We can learn from other teams like the Spurs and the Celtics."
But his team can't spend like those teams, and even when the Hornets do, it doesn't work out. Coming off the seven-game loss to the Spurs two years ago, the Hornets lured Posey from the Celtics' championship team in the hopes that he'd do for them what he did in Boston. After a sub-par 2008-09, Posey had right knee surgery back in May and still isn't in shape. Privately, team officials hope Posey will be able to use the regular season to get his conditioning back. He's going to need it, because by then the Lakers, Spurs, Nuggets, Mavericks and who-knows-who-else probably will have left the Hornets behind.
Exhibit B: New Orleans got the better player in the Chandler-Emeka Okafor trade, yet Okafor barely practiced and didn't appear in any preseason games due to a toe injury, causing speculation that he was taking too long to come back. He had his third double-double in four games Monday night (24 points and 10 rebounds), yet Scott admitted before the game that Okafor's lack of familiarity with the Hornets' defensive schemes has been one of the culprits in their shaky start.
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Berger: NBA reviewing Paul-Rondo incident Recap: Knicks 117, Hornets 111 |
"He's making some defensive mistakes because of just not knowing how we normally do things," Scott said. "That's all going to take a little bit of time."
But time isn't something that interests Paul, who thought he'd be competing for championships by now and displaying his startling gifts on a stage worthy of them. His frustration is beginning to boil.
On Sunday night in Boston, the Celtics' Rajon Rondo got under his skin and the two players had to be separated after the final buzzer sounded in Boston's 97-87 victory. The league office is reviewing the incident, which Paul didn't want to address Monday night -- after getting into a scuffle with the Knicks' Al Harrington during a loose-ball scrum. Paul denied throwing any punches, and Harrington gave his friend a pass.
"My head hit his knee," Harrington said. "He might have slipped a couple of jabs in there, but it didn't affect me."
Think about that: The guy who scores all the points on a bad Knicks team showing pity for one of the great point guards in the game.
On one hand, Paul says things will be fine -- "It's a long season," he said -- and in his next breath he laments that the Hornets are a team without a style. That's code for "team with a stubborn coach." Scott wants a rugged, defense-obsessed, insanely conditioned team. He wants this all the time, with no exceptions. But if a week goes by, and then a month, and it's not working, he'll have to try something else or he will lose the team.
"Every team has an identity or a style of play," Paul said. "We've got to find out, are we going to be a fast team? Are we going to be a slow-down team? Are we going to run a set every time?"
Paul kept talking Monday night about what can be done to make the existing roster better, which says everything you need to know. The Hornets are tapped out; nothing will be done to change the talent enough to make a difference. Improving from within, with an impatient point guard and lame-duck coach on the last year of his contract, is all there is. And Paul, one of the game's fiercest competitors and joyful performers, appears to have slipped into a joyless existence. He's playing angry.
"It's tough," Paul said. "I don't know the last time we were under .500, let alone 1-3. My whole thing is, we can learn and try to jell but we can win at the same time. We've got to find a way to do that. ... I know we have 15 willing guys in this locker room who know how to play this game, who can compete, and who are pros. So whatever we have to do to find the rhythm of this team, we've got to do it."
All of Paul's conversations with Scott and GM Jeff Bower are about making it work with the guys they have. There are no more guys coming, no way to turn the clock back to 2007-08, when a plucky team with a brilliant young star won 56 games and was going places.
"You go to the second round of the playoffs, and the next year you're like, 'OK, we got a taste of it, let's go beyond,'" Paul said. "We have guys that are capable of doing anything that anyone else can do in this league. We've got to find it. We've got to find out what our identity is."
The problem is, maybe they already have.
