March 17, 2009

Still Troubled

For two straight games, Ty hasn't looked like the player who led the Hornets to nine wins in his first 10 games back.

It’s no coincidence that New Orleans also hasn’t looked like the same team they were after being energized from his return. In last night’s postgame, Ty let on what the problem might be, as quoted by the Big Easy Buzz Blog:

“I just don’t feel like my ankle is healed. It was dragging me out there. It was a tough time (tonight). I’ll get some treatment and see how it goes.”

No. 6 will hope to avoid another extended stay on the bench, but with the playoffs on the horizon, he may need to let the ankle finish healing to be at his best when the Bees need him the most.

TOUGH NIGHT
Ty wasn’t at his best against Houston and it was obvious something was bothering the Big Easy. He scored just four points and tallied seven boards. TC also has two steals and a block, but fouled out with 90 seconds remaining. The loss was New Orleans’ second straight and Tyson believes these are games they should be winning:

“We had a tough loss in Chicago. It was a tough loss here again at home in a game that you want to win.”

No. 6 committed three fouls in the final frame as the Rockets took what they wanted in the lane as Tyson noted:

“They just did a good job of getting into the paint and to the free throw line. That pretty much carried them throughout the game with the points in the paint and the free throws that they made.”

BREAKING IT DOWN
Veteran NBA writer Charley Rosen was in the house Monday night and used his Fox Sports.com column to analyze Tyson’s play against Houston.

In his in-depth analysis, Rosen offers another possible reason for TC’s uneven performance:

“Even though Chandler played 37 minutes, he only had twelve touches in the attack zone. Five of these were shots, three were handoffs, and four resulted in his making reversal-passes from above the 3-point arc. His only attempt to score from the low-post eventuated in a sloppy dribble and the first of his two turnovers…”

“It’s axiomatic that no matter how limited a big man’s offense talents might be, force-feeding him in the low post and letting him go at it is necessary to motivate every other aspect of his game — rebounding, defending, passing, and so on. Instead, the Hornets chose to make Chandler an anonymous foot soldier — and the rest of his game suffered.”

Rosen also breaks down other things that just don’t show up in the stat sheet, like Ty’s success on screens (he counted 19 that Tyson set, resulting in 11 Hornets points) as well as No. 6’s work on defense:

- He executed several aggressive shows on the nether sides of Houston’s S/Rs.
- He bumped a number of cutters off their intended routes.
- By my count, he made nine excellent defensive rotations that led to Houston’s committing three turnovers.
- He hit the floor in pursuit of a loose ball — something that bigs rarely do.
- When Landry posted him, Chandler blocked the resulting shot.
- On another pivotal sequence, Chandler held his position and forced Landry to spin – blindly into the middle — where CP3 easily stole the ball.
- In direct confrontations, he yielded only one point to Dikembe Mutombo and four to Carl Landry.

To read Rosen’s entire column, click here.

WAYNE’S WORLD
For ESPN the Magazine.com, celebrity columnist and New Orleans area rapper Lil’ Wayne opens up his mailbag and offers his thoughts on Tyson and CP.

Jeff (Birmingham)
- Wayne—I know you are a huge Hornets fan and I was wondering about your reaction to the whole saga of Tyson Chandler getting traded and then coming back?
Wayne: Tyson Chandler and Chris Paul are becoming one of the greatest, most-unstoppable dynamic duos in the league and it would have been horrible to split them up. Just atrocious. But I’m glad it happened so they could feel that kick in the gut when they thought he wasn’t going to be on the team no more. They needed that push, and now they know what they’ve got to do, so it’s a good thing.

NEXT UP
Tyson’s ankle gets the night off as the Hornets get a breather tonight before going toe-to-toe with Minnesota on Wednesday night at New Orleans Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 5 p.m. PST and all the action can be seen live in New Orleans on CST.

RELATED STORIES
Rockets at Hornets Box Score (NBA.com, March 16, 2009)
http://www.nba.com/games/20090316/HOUNOH/boxscore.html
Hornets.com postgame Rockets 95, Hornets 86 (Big Easy Buzz Blog, March 16, 2009)
http://neworleanshornetsblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/hornetscom-postgame-ro...
New Orleans Hornets unable to move ahead of Yao-less Rockets (The Times-Picayune, March 17, 2009)
http://blog.nola.com/hornetsbeat/2009/03/new_orleans_hornets_unable_to.h...
Chandler must play well or Hornets to compete (Fox Sports.com, March 17, 2009)
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/9338942/Chandler-must-play-well-for-H...
Lil Wayne: This is not the year for Cinderella Teams: (ESPNtheMagazine.com, March 17, 2009)
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3988976