Tip-off set for Thursday’s game

• Advocate staff report
• Published: May 14, 2008 - Page: 6C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — The tip-off for Game 6 between the Hornets and the Spurs on Thursday night in San Antonio was set for 8 p.m. after the Detroit Pistons completed a 4-1 series victory with a 91-86 victory against Orlando on Tuesday.

The conclusion of that Eastern Conference semifinal series means the Hornets-Spurs Game 6 will be the only game played Thursday. If a deciding seventh game in necessary it will be played Monday in the New Orleans Arena.

Hard to figure
Hornets coach Byron Scott said it’s hard to figure out why homecourt advantage has been so pronounced in the conference semifinals, in which only one road team had won entering Tuesday’s games.

“The court is 94 feet,” Scott said. “The dimensions are all the same. The colors are little bit different maybe, but other than that it shouldn’t be that big of a difference, but it is. For whatever reason it is, and I don’t know if it’s the teams and the players that are playing at home feel a lot more comfortable or they’re more confident. I don’t know what it is.”

The Heat is on
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is in favor of NBA Commissioner David Stern’s proposed scaling down of the pyrotechnics and other fiery displays during pregame introductions.

Popovich said the heat that comes from cylinders wheeled onto the court and the powder and smoke that often hang over arenas from fireworks displays are dangerous for people who may be suffering from lung problems. But that’s not his only concern.

“In general, when you do pyrotechnics, there’s going to be an accident,” Popovich said. “It’s like putting up a stop sign at an intersection after a kid gets killed. Something’s going to happen. That was a mild warning (from the commissioner).”

Mano o mano?
Hornets center Tyson Chandler called the Spurs’ Tim Duncan a future Hall of Famer and “maybe the best power forward ever to play this game.”

Still, he said, sometimes he’s tempted to ask Scott to abandon his double-teaming strategy and let Chandler play Duncan one-on-one.

“It’s going to be tough, but at times I just want to see what I could do with him out there,” Chandler said. “I love the match-up, but sometimes you can’t go to the coach and say things like that because we want to stick with the scheme. If we’re comfortable getting out and rotating and Coach feels that’s the way we’re going to be aggressive I’ve got to roll with that.”

It couldn’t hurt
Scott said he wasn’t trying “to send a message” when he benched all five of his starters after the Hornets had fallen hopelessly behind entering the fourth quarter of Game 4. “I did it because we were getting our butt kicked — simple as that,” Scott said.

Chandler said the starters understood why Scott did it. “We weren’t getting it done,” Chandler said.

“Obviously as a competitor you want to be out there and be playing every minute. Obviously things weren’t working when the starters were out there. We weren’t producing so he tried to give us some life with the second team.”