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Two quick things for you to absorb before the Lakers game tonight:

The newest edition of the Blogger's Power Rankings is up over at The Lakers Nation blog.  I, of course, participated, and my witty comments can be found all over them.  No, really!  I am witty!

I also did a question exchange with LA Ball Talk's Daniel Sagal for your reading pleasure.  You can find my answers over at his site.  He also double-dipped and asked the same questions of At The Hive, so you can go take a look and see just how much cooler I am than Rohan and company.  Poor ol' ticktock and wawer of Hornetshype were not invited.  I think it's because my buddy is waging a behind-the-scenes hate campaign against ticktock ever since last year she beat him out by one point to win the Paul All-Star Jersey and Shoes in our Hornets247 All-Star Give Away.  He's a bitter, bitter man.

The Questions:

Hornets247: A lot of people say Pau Gasol is soft. My own experience of him is that he loves to make scary faces, but actually has the ferocity of a turnip. Of course, I also can't say I've watched him a lot. Where do you come down on the issue?

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I'll keep this preview short.  The Hornets have already played the Lakers twice this season, and both times, the Lakers put the hurt on them in the first two quarters, running out to a twenty-point lead, and then let up, letting the Hornets come back and make it look respectable in the last two quarters.  Neither of those losses were respectable at all.

It's a long season, and typically I think "statement games" are pretty overblown.  The Mavericks had a "statement game" on the last day of the regular season to beat the Hornets, and then got steamrolled in the playoffs.  The Suns regularly had "statement games" against the Spurs during the regular season the past few years, and we know how that turned out for them in the playoffs.  The Hornets even had two "statement games" to start their series against the Spurs.  I'll stop there, no one wants to remember what happened next.

Tomorrow night, however, will tell us something about the Hornets.  If they get hammered again, falling behind big, that forms a pattern of four games in a row(going back to last season) being blowouts in favor of the Lakers.  If that happens, I'm willing to say that the Hornets won't get past the Conference Finals this off-season.  No, not that they probably won't.  They won't.

However, if the Hornets come out and play the Lakers tough, even if they lose by single digits, then I'll like our chances in the postseason more.  Not a lot more, just more.

So, I am saying it is a statement game for the Hornets.  It'll make the statement about whether they can match up with the Lakers, who are almost certainly the primary Conference Final contender this season. 

I can't tell you how much I hope the Hornets prove themselves.  I want to believe.

As for a positional analysis and matchup, the Lakers haven't changed from my last preview.  At this point, however, I'd call the Bynum-Chandler matchup in favor of the Lakers until and if Chandler returns to last year's form.

Enjoy the game.

Wow.  That was a crazy game.  I watch all of my games on Time-Delay TIVO so I can skip the commercials and fast-forward through the free-throws, and typically my friend arrives about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes after tip off and we finish only a few minutes after the game ends.

Tonight my friend calls me halfway through the game and says he's not coming over for it.  Of course, he always does that when the Hornets are suffering through a blowout, so I had the pleasure of going into the game knowing I was going to watch a meltdown and cursing myself for telling Niall I would do the recap.  You can imagine my good humor when the Hornets started falling apart in the second behind bad turnovers and worse defense.

However, at 4:11 in the game, with the score tied 94-94 after watching the Hornets obliterate a 26-point lead over sixteen minutes of basketball, I called my friend's house to tell him I didn't care what happened in the next four minutes, I was happy, and that he was a pile of crap for wimping out on the game and putting me through that.  He was too scared to pick up.

Observations, Bullets style:

• We started off the game with Butler taking Chauncey and Peja taking Anthony.  I know a lot of people are going to kill Stojakovic for his defense, but honestly, he did what he was supposed to.  He kept him mostly from driving, let him get the ball around 17-18 feet, and contested the shot when it went up.  You can say it was stupid, but Anthony is shooting 48-131(36%) from that distance this season.  And the from right side of the floor, where he was shooting, he's even worse, firing away at 29%.  Give 'em what they aren't good at, and give 'em credit when they do it anyways.
  
  
• Okay, take a deep breath before I say this.  Hilton Armstrong was excellent.  Seventeen points on eight shots, five of five from the charity stripe.  Three offensive rebounds.  I'm not going to take anything away from him tonight, his first quarter was simply great, and he made Linas Kleiza look like a chump.  For some reason, whenever Hilton starts, he plays pretty well. It's hard to figure out, considering how bad he can be off the bench.
  

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Whoopidee whoop, here we go again. The Hornets are fresh off their big win in Portland last night, but no time to celebrate as we roll into Denver tonight to face a Nuggets team hungry for vengeance (flashback). Tip off is at 8pm Central.

The Nuggets were busy last night in Oklahoma City, needing a buzzer-beating triple by Carmelo Anthony to overcome the mighty and awesome Thunder. But despite giving up 120 points to the worst team in the history of mankind, Denver are a tough team and their 22-12 record puts them just a half game behind us in the standings.

No word on Tyson just yet. We may be without him if he gets suspended for his tussle with Przybilla last night. I'll keep and ear out and update here.

UPDATE: Word on the Hornets Report boards is that Tyson has been suspended one game, so he'll be unavailable tonight.

UPDATE 2: Confirmed by the T-P. Przybilla also got punished: "$7,500 for his role in the incident and assessed a Flagrant Foul Penalty One for a forearm to the chest of Chandler."

Linkage:

• No game preview today, but the one from Thanksgiving is still relevant.
  
• Lagniappe: Blazer recaps, Hilton Watch, Charley Rosen on the Hornets and more.
  
• Nuggets blogs: Denver Stiffs | Roundball Mining Company | The Nugg Doctor
• All-Star voting - Go vote for CP right now!

I was going to throw a bunch of the Chandler vs. Przybilla stuff in a few Lagniappe posts, but figured it would be easier to keep it all together in a blog post instead. First, here's some video (via Bust a Bucket) of last night's incident:

(My favorite part of that video: The same old guy in the stands at 1:21 and 3:57, first heckling Tyson and then waving him goodbye after TC got hit with the ejection. I love old people.)

I watched the game last night on CST, so I got the Bob and Gil commentary. The video above has the Blazers' announcers, who a lot of commenters had complaints about in yesterday's game thread.

Jason Quick of The Oregonian has a bunch of good stories and quotes from Chandler and Przybilla regarding the incident. A few of those...

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