While watching the end of the Hornets/Spurs Game 7, there was one thought that consistently ran through my head: why the hell is Jannero Pargo taking all the shots? With talented players like Chris Paul and David West on the floor, I couldn’t understand why all the outlet passes were going to Pargo, nor why Pargo felt it was necessary to try and take over the game. He’s not their hero — we pay to watch CP3 play — and that’s how the Hornets win. Taking a look at the play-by-play of the game, Pargo controlled the ball 14 times in the 4th quarter, taking 12 shots, making five of them, and getting fouled on two possessions.
I understand that Pargo was hot to start the quarter, but man, he just flamed out late in the game and took the squad down with him. Moreover, how could the Hornets let him control the ball the way he did? How in the last three minutes of the final game of your season do you not have the ball in the hands of your best player — CP3 — who also happened to be the second most valuable player in the league because of his ability to create? I don’t understand how Byron Scott, much less the players on the floor, let that happen. Jannero Pargo is a fine player who helped New Orleans out all year, including this particular game, but at some point limits need to put in place, and role players need to understand just that — their roles. And for Jannero Pargo, it’s not to take over the ballgame by bombing shots 1-on-1 and taking every single ball up the floor.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 and is filed under Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I agree with you that, from the Hornets’ standpoint, Pargo shouldn’t have been taking the shots. However, I think you need to give credit to Greg Popovich and the Spurs, because they doubled Paul and overplayed on West to make sure that Pargo or Stoyo were the ones who took the shots.
Chris Paul is great, but, like Steve Nash, he can be taken out of his game by a double team of good defenders. Only super athletes like Kobe and LeBron can do their thing against that type of defense, and even they can’t do it all of the time.