vlaze.com

San Antonio is in a must win situation at home down 0-2 to the Hornets. The last time San Antonio was down 0-2 in a playoff series was 2001 when the Lakers swept them. The pattern continued from their regular season. When New Orleans gets in the 100's they win. New Orleans shot 50% in game 1 and 48% in game 2. Those are mind-boggling numbers against San Antonio in the playoffs. So the goal here for the Spurs is to slow down the game but it will be tough to execute against this young team with an MVP caliber point guard. New Orleans may be surprising some people but San Antonio knew coming in this was going to be a tough series. All you need to do is look at New Orleans 102-78 total pounding in San Antonio before the Spurs headed out for their rodeo road trip. There was enough tape on Paul for Popovich to adjust in game 1 and then in game 2. They still had no answers for Chris Paul as he had 30 points and 12 assists in game 2. Tyson Chandler is fronting Tim Duncan and Melvin Ely off the bench is doing a good job in limited minutes of keeping the ball away from the San Antonio's center. Duncan's field goal attempts are way down in this series due to the Hornets swarming defense on him. Phil Jackson's game plan against the Spurs in the Lakers Kobe and Shaq championship run comes to mind. Phil Jackson's would harp about turning the Spurs into a jump shooting team. Well that is working here as the Spurs shot 27 three-point shots in game 2. I pick against the pointspread and I am going to take the 6 ½ points and the Hornets in game 3 because I believe the Hornets can be competitive in San Antonio. Take New Orleans +6 ½.

Dallas was in this spot in the last series and beat the Hornets by 7 limiting New Orleans to just 37.9% shooting.