Even before the Hornets were spanked by the Knicks last night, Jamal Mashburn was saying that his first-round playoff choice is the Heat, not the Knicks.
His preference is based on retribution. For after spending the previous four stormy seasons playing for Pat Riley, the Hornets star said he carries a burning desire to finish off his former team.
“I would rather [play] Miami in the playoffs,” said Mashburn, who scored 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting before fouling out late in the fourth quarter in Charlotte’s humiliating 113-98 loss at the Garden. “That would be something I would like to accomplish, sending them home.”
First, however, Charlotte needs to snap out of its slump. By dropping their fourth straight game and eight of their last 10, the Hornets (42-36) fell into a tie with Orlando for sixth place in the Eastern Conference, with four games left.
The Knicks (46-31), meanwhile, pulled within a half-game of the Heat for the third spot. If the Knicks finish in third and the Hornets in sixth, the teams would meet in the first round.
A Hornets-Knicks first-round matchup would mark the fifth straight year that Mashburn has faced the Knicks in playoffs. While Latrell Sprewell was often matched against the Harlem-native during the last two postseasons, the Knicks mostly guarded him with Glen Rice last night, with double-team help from Marcus Camby in the fourth quarter.
“It’s very effective,” Mashburn, who was held to two points and two shots in the fourth, said of Camby’s double-team. “They scouted us well.”
While his statistics confirm that he was a key offensive contributor to the Heat during his four seasons (15.8 scoring average), the 6-foot-8 Mashburn never felt comfortable in Riley’s stifling slow-down offense. Nor, it seems, did Riley feel satisfied with Mashburn’s defensive skills.
That uneasy relationship was finally broken up last summer when the Heat sent Mashburn, P.J. Brown, Otis Thorpe, Rodney Buford and Tim James to Charlotte in exchange for Anthony Mason, Eddie Jones, Ricky Davis and Dale Ellis.
“I just wasn’t a Pat Riley type of player,” said Mashburn, who is averaging a team-high 20.1 points and 7.5 rebounds. “I wasn’t a half-court type of guy, that’s not one of my strengths.”