Old-style Hornets topple new-age Mavs

11-6-97

By ED HARDIN, Staff Writer

CHARLOTTE -- Dell Curry, the oldest Hornet, and Glen Rice, the coldest, carried Charlotte to a 110-103 win over Dallas Wednesday night when Curry turned young again and Rice turned hot again.

Curry scored 23 points in 32 minutes, and Rice scored a game-high 28, making 6-of-7 shots in the third period and scoring five straight in a key stretch of the final period. Charlotte shook off a new-age Mavericks team with some old-style Hornets basketball.

"Three-pointers," said Curry. "I don't know where they've been."

Charlotte made 5-of-9 three-pointers, four by Curry and one by Rice, as the Hornets showed flashes of their flashy past. Coach Dave Cowens was far more impressed with the 13 free throws in the fourth quarter.

"If we hadn't made our free throws we would have come out with a loss," Cowens said.

Charlotte pulled away from Dallas with long-range shots, but the Hornets couldn't put Dallas away until the short-range shots fell. While Rice and Curry got most of the attention during the game, center Vlade Divas got most of it after the game. He was surrounded by cameras in the locker room after his best game of the season, a 14-point, seven-rebound effort made more impressive by his defense on 7-6 Dallas center Shawn Bradley.

"Everybody played well tonight," Divac said.

It was Curry and Rice, though, who made everybody else look good. Curry, 33, played his longest stint in almost a year with Bobby Phills injured and Muggsy Bogues and Tony Delk trying to get out of Cowens' dog house. Bogues played only four minutes. Delk didn't play at all.

Curry scored 15 points in a nine-minute stretch of the second quarter, and Rice, who was hitting only 43 percent from the field before Wednesday, scored 13 points in 12 minutes of the third as Charlotte's outside game finally started to heat up after a slow start to the season.

"I think we finally started to show what we can do," Rice said.

The Hornets, who came in with a 1-2 record, struggled early against a team that came in 3-0 after a win over Seattle and two over Vancouver. Charlotte trailed 21-17 before Divac started muscling past Shawn Bradley inside, opening holes for David Wesley and Rice to operate.

But with the score tied at 23, it was Curry who started doing surgery on the Dallas interior. While the Mavs repeatedly dropped back on defense, trying to seal off Mason and Divac, Curry roamed free. By halftime, he had scored 15 points, and Dallas was at

a loss as to which Charlotte players to cover.

"I was shooting from that one spot," Curry said. "I kept waiting for them to take that spot from me, but they never did."

Rice, who scored 28 in a win over Miami Monday night, took over the game after halftime, leading the Hornets to a 95-85 lead while frustrating Mavs forward Michael Finley, Dallas' leading scorer through three games.

Finley finished with 20 points, below his average, and Rice raised his average to 20 points a game.

"We're getting a little closer," Rice said. "I think one of the things we're doing now as a team is we're running the ball. It's getting us easier shots and its helping us go after teams on defense."

Dallas hit 57 percent of its shots in the first half, but Charlotte held the Mavs to less than 33 percent from the field for the rest of the game. The Hornets, sparked by Curry and Rice's combined 20-of-34 shooting, hit 51.3 percent from the field.

HORNETS 110, MAVERICKS 103

FG FT Reb

DALLAS Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts

Finley 42 7-11 5-5 1-2 4 3 20

Green 39 3-10 2-2 5-12 3 2 8

Bradley 29 5-8 3-4 1-5 1 3 13

Reeves 36 7-12 7-8 1-3 5 3 24

Davis 31 6-13 2-2 1-1 0 2 15

Ollie 12 0-3 0-0 0-1 0 0 0

Scott 24 3-8 3-3 0-1 3 4 9

Thomas 18 5-13 0-0 1-3 1 5 10

Walker 9 1-1 2-2 2-4 0 2 4

Totals 240 37-79 24-26 12-32 17 24 103

Percentages: FG .468, FT .923.

3-Point Goals: 5-9, .556 (Reeves 3-4, Finley 1-2, Davis 1-2, Scott 0-1).

Team Rebounds: 12.

Blocked shots: 2 (Finley, Bradley).

Turnovers: 10 (Davis 3, Finley 3, Bradley 2, Scott, Thomas).

Steals: 3 (Finley 3).

Technical fouls: Illegal defense, 3:25 4th.

Illegal defense: 1. FG FT Reb

CHARLOTTE Min M-A M-A O-T A PF Pts

Mason 36 1-4 1-2 3-9 6 2 3

Rice 44 12-21 3-4 2-7 3 3 28

Divac 33 6-8 2-2 2-7 3 1 14

Wesley 41 6-19 7-8 0-2 8 2 19

Beck 20 0-2 2-2 1-2 3 3 2

Curry 32 8-13 3-5 1-4 4 1 23

Farmer 4 1-2 1-2 0-0 0 1 3

Geiger 15 4-6 2-2 3-5 0 4 10

Bogues 4 0-1 0-0 0-0 3 1 0

Reid 11 3-4 2-2 2-3 2 3 8

Totals 240 41-80 23-29 14-39 32 21 110

Percentages: FG .513, FT .793.

3-Point Goals: 5-9, .556 (Curry 4-5, Rice 1-2, Wesley 0-2).

Team Rebounds: 6.

Blocked shots: 3 (Rice, Divac, Geiger).

Turnovers: 9 (Wesley 3, Curry 2, Mason, Rice, Divac, Reid).

Steals: 4 (Rice, Divac, Wesley, Geiger).

Technical fouls: None.

Illegal defense: None. Dallas 25 31 22 25--103

Charlotte 28 31 23 28--110

A--24,042 (24,042). T--2:15.

Officials--Ronnie Nunn, David Jones, Sean Corbin.