Hornets looking at it as Game 7, too

As you might imagine, the Hornets view tonight as their chance to essentially close out the series. But for that to happen, they can’t repeat their Game 3 showing. Bring on the boxing analogies.

“We definitely need to come out in attack mode,” Tyson Chandler said. “The last game we were just sitting back, sitting back, sitting back, kind of like taking their punches and waiting for it to be our turn and it was never our turn.

“I think we need to come out and throw the first punch and keep swinging. This is a good ballclub we’re talking about here. This isn’t some hokey-doke team. This is the Dallas Mavericks and they’ve been good for awhile now. We have to come out and deliver a knockout punch.”

The head of the New Orleans snake echoed the Mavs’ sense of urgency.

“We’ve got to approach this game like it’s Game 7,” Chris Paul said. “This game right here doesn’t win it for us, but it gives us an opportunity to go back home and close it out. This is right now the biggest game of the season for us.”

Hornets coach Byron Scott: “We have to treat it like they treat it. We have to treat it like it’s a Game 7. Obviously, we can go back 2-2 and have homecourt advantage. To me it’s the biggest game of the series for both teams. I know they don’t want to go back down 3-1.

“If they do tie it up at 2, the momentum kind of shifts in their favor. All things we were able to accomplish last week, I don’t necessarily say it goes down the drain, but it just makes it a little tougher. We have to come out here with a different attitude than we did in Game 3.”