Going unbeaten in the preseason has its rewards you know. Apparently if you make it through with nothing but W’s, David Stern sends your team a cake with “Love and Lemons” written on it. Might not sound like much but I hear D-Stizzle insists it be the most exceedingly good kind of cake.

Time is short tonight because me and some solid folks hit up Handsome Willy’s (site of the mega-party next week) post game and now it’s all late and stuff. So let’s do the game notes Gerry V style then hit the scratcher…

• Chris Paul and David West were in All-Star form. Their numbers were the far side of ridiculous for an exhibition game. See for yourself.
• Tyson couldn’t get his offense working like he wanted to and that seemed to frustrate him and hurt the rest of his game. He made some key plays late, but not a strong performance at all for him.
• I love James Posey and both his socks. Dude was out there digging on defense, coming up with loose balls, diving out of bounds, knocking down triples. I’m real glad he’s a Hornet. Interesting to note too that he played more minutes than starter Mo-Pete, and he was out there with the other four starters down the stretch. I expect that will often be the case this season.
• Hilton Armstrong didn’t have a masterful performance by any means, but he pulled some kind of wizardry in the fourth quarter when he got blocked, chased the ball down on the baseline, whipped a dribble behind his back and then dropped a no-look to Melvin Ely for an easy two. Reminded me of the time Neo stopped them bullets.
• Rasual Butler continued with his aggressive play, looking to attack whenever he was on the floor. Didn’t always turn out too good for him tonight but I hope he keeps his head up and stays assertive. I figure his biggest problem last season was losing all confidence when he got into a bad slump.
• Pink.
• Free throws and rebounds were not pretty for us tonight. Pacers shot a high percentage for most of the game. Lots of open jumpers and they made us pay.
• Trailing for most of the fourth quarter, but the Hornets never flinched and finished it out like a serious team. The Pacers were just trying to hang on, no killer instinct.
• We were definitely in regular season mode for this one. Starters played more realistic minutes, CP and West had it going. Not an altogether great team performance, but the effort was there. Maybe not the concentration, but definitely the effort. If that makes sense.
• Devin Brown DNP. He really is looking like the odd man out.

Methinks I failed miserably at the Gerry V thing. There can be only one. Hornets will wrap up the preseason on Thursday against the Miami Heat in Mobile. Eyes on the cake-shaped prize.