Dominating the Web - and the Kings

'Lo all, the NBA is back, the Hornets won, and I'm exuding inner peace and joy. I'm also happy to announce that my words will now be carried even further over the net, as I've been invited to join MVN.com as their Hornets blogger. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop blogging here, it just means that I'll be posting in both places - and cross linking so that I can steal all of MVN's traffic. I'm nefarious that way. So, tell all your Hornets Fan friends to read me there too.

Moving on to the game, I can't say enough about the new offense on display last night. Sure, it was assisted by the King's tissue paper-like defense, but that balanced attack was a thing of beauty. Watching the Hornets the last few years, I've forgotten just how deadly having more than one three-point specialist to spread the floor can be, and how much Desmond Mason's lack of a jump shot hurt the Hornets offense. With Mase on the floor, we'd at best have had one option trying to stretch the defense on the weak side and nailing open jumpers, and the corner three was non-existant. Last night, Peterson, Butler and Stojakovic ran to the corners and wings and Paul found them whenever he could. Butler looked nice offensively off the bench, and Bobby, though his shot wasn't falling, was a shot of energy and played well.

The starter's defense was good everywhere except for Peja. He trailed along behind Salmons and was slow to close on multiple posessions. It's an issue, but the Hornets handled it last night as the Hornets big men challenged everything in the paint. Still, Salmons isn't Carter or McGrady, and it will bear watching.

All was not all tea and crumpets though.(There you go, my one reader from the UK) Our backup big men had hard nights. It was clear that Hilton was hyper and trying to do too much, resulting in several ugly turnovers and stupid fouls. He's going to have to calm down if he wants to be the primary backup. Melvin Ely had turnover problems as well, traveling several times as he tried to make moves in the post. He also took some questionable shots, though his baseline jumper looked nice.

Pargo has some trouble too - but a lot of that stemmed from him trying to push the tempo and being a little out of control. I'm not going to give him a hard time for trying to execute Byron's game plan.

The overall pace of the game was slow. The Hornets had 96 posessions, the Kings 95. That's definitely not the running game Byron had in mind, being only two posessions faster than last years very slow squad.

Can't wait until Friday, when the Hornets take on the Blazers.