The Hornets have no playoff experience. Thank you, everyone, for letting us know. New Orleans will face Dallas in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs starting Saturday, and plenty of league pundits are convinced the Mavericks have an edge against New Orleans because they’ve danced to the playoff tune every season since 2001. I don’t subscribe to that theory. New Orleans is a seasoned playoff team – they just haven’t played any official playoff games yet. Allow me to explain. With the Western Conference playoff race wound as tight as spandex in the past month, the Hornets – and eight other Western Conference teams for that matter – have essentially been playing postseason games since March. It wasn’t until the final game of the season that playoff seedings were determined, meaning every game on every night counted for something. The Hornets emerged from that muddled mess with the second-best record. It’s safe to say they know how to play under pressure. Now all they have to do is apply it to a seven-game series. If playoff experience wins games, then how did the Mavericks, as the No. 1 seed, lose in the first round this past season? Hadn’t they competed in the NBA Finals only a season earlier? And wasn’t Golden State – the team that beat them – playing in the playoffs for the first time in 13 years? The Mavericks got embarrassed during this past season’s playoffs because they couldn’t play defense. Baron Davis (as terrible as that beard is) and his Warriors exposed Dallas as a team ripe with offensive talent but as soft as ice cream on the defensive side of the ball. The Hornets don’t have that problem. They win with defense, creating easy buckets and fast-break points off steals and blocks. The series will pit two All-Star point guards against each other in Chris Paul and Jason Kidd – a battle of the ballhandlers you might say. Paul vs. Kidd can be boiled down to a few simple comparisons: youth vs. experience, speed vs. savvy and quickness vs. strength. Paul is younger, faster, quicker and more explosive with the ball in his hands. He is capable of controlling the game with both his scoring and passing. There’s no one better at getting steals either, as Paul is ranked No. 1 in the league in that category this past season. Kidd poses a different threat. With the exception of Suns’ point guard Steve Nash, no one understands the game of basketball better than Kidd. Don’t sleep on basketball IQ, either. It can become the great equalizer for an older player who can’t rely on his body as much as he used to. The fact is, until the Hornets win a playoff series, their experience will undoubtedly be questioned. And if the only imperfection in the armor is the fact that they haven’t played on the big stage yet, I’d say the Hornets are set to make a pretty deep run.
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