<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> SAN ANTONIO ? Of all the NBA teams the Jazz could choose to emulate, a good pick might be . . . the 13-win New Orleans Hornets? That's what Jazz starting forward Andrei Kirilenko seemed to suggest Friday, after the Hornets beat the Jazz 92-85 in New Orleans behind double-digit scoring from a half-dozen different players. "They played like a team ? like a real team," Kirilenko said after the 20-38 Jazz's modest three-game win streak came to a close. "Look at the stats: Nobody (from New Orleans) scored more than 15 points, but six or seven guys in double figures," he added. "They really help each other, and play this kind of basketball which the Utah Jazz should play." Team ball, in other words. In theory, it's the kind of play that on the offensive end starts with execution and ends with solid shot selection. In reality, it's what the Jazz were doing more often than not during a mini-string of wins last week over Houston, the Los Angeles Clippers and Atlanta ? and what they have not during so much of the rest of the season. "There were a couple plays down the stretch, again, where we didn't execute," co-captain Matt Harpring said after a Jazz rally from 14 down stalled at five behind the Hornets late in Friday's fourth quarter. "We've been executing in the last three games we were winning," Harpring said. "This was a winnable game for us. (But) it seemed like the same thing happened to us that was happening earlier in the year, where we just . . . had miscues and we didn't get anything on the offensive end."</div> Source
I don't know if the Hornets are the team to emulate, but I see what he is saying. I think Kirilenko really liked last years team, no one player was looked upon to be greater than the other. He's a team player and he knows that the team who playes harder wins not the player.
The current Hornets are a lot like last seasons Jazz. They're a young team who wont beat you with one superstar in particular, but with good team play. This is how the Jazz won their games last season, and what I think Kirilenko likes in them. Still, I would much rather Utah tried to emulate a team that doesn't have one of the worst records in the league, like the Spurs.
