Thoughts on the series from TNT last night

Chris Paul on the importance of winning Game 4 to send the series back to New Orleans: “It’s a great feeling to go up 3-1 knowing that we are going back to New Orleans where I feel we have some of the best fans in the league. We have momentum. We knew that we hadn’t won here since my man (former Hornets point guard) Muggsy (Bogues) was running the point so we wanted to change that.”

Paul on the importance of Hornets head coach Byron Scott’s NBA experience: “Coach has been to the Finals as a player and a coach. He really has the utmost confidence in us. He never lets us get too high on our horse. After the game (tonight), he let us know how hard it is to close out a team and he stays on us. Most of all, he lets us play, he lets us go out there and make our mistakes and he rewards us when we play well.”

Kenny Smith on the questions that surround the Dallas Mavericks and the Phoenix Suns: “This is an interesting time watching Phoenix and Dallas go down. Two perennial powers in the Western Conference for years and years and years, both teams made big trades. Your mind will tell you that neither of these teams can come back and if they don’t, where is the next step for these two teams? What personnel will be there? Do they give it another full year again? Do they blow this whole thing up and start again? Both teams made big additions and subtractions on their team with the short-term goal of winning the Championship and that short-term goal hasn’t gotten here.”

Charles Barkley on criticizing the Suns and Mavericks for making big in-season trades for Shaquille O’Neal and Jason Kidd respectively: “(The media) is going to jump on the Phoenix trade and they’re going to jump on the Dallas trade. But I take my hat off to (Phoenix GM) Steve Kerr and Mark Cuban because they had to try something. Everyone can say now that it’s not working and it’s a bad trade but they both had to do something. But the truth of the matter is, the Lakers made the best trade getting Pau Gasol. Shaq has been the man for a long time; he’s obviously on the downside of his career. Jason is going to the Hall of Fame. They’ve both been great players. Everyone is going to say those trades didn’t work but those teams couldn’t stand-pat.”

Chris Webber on the lack of energy that Mavericks have: “This is why I think the series is over, if they didn’t have more energetic guys coming off the bench (like Brandon Bass) after the way they lost last year to an eighth seed and they don’t have more passion than a guy coming off the bench who hasn’t played much. I really don’t think they are moving on. Brandon Bass played a great game.”

Webber on the Dallas Mavericks: “No one came over to help (Jason Kidd after his flagrant foul on Hornets guard Jannero Pargo). I wouldn’t want to play for Dallas and be in the trenches and then not have any players watch my back because I think the only players that would come is Kidd and Stackhouse. So I don’t want to take all that heat for the other guys when no one is going to come to my rescue.”