Wednesday NBA: New Orleans Hornets at San Antonio Spurs
A great matchup on ESPN tonight in the NBA’s second night of action in 2009 with two teams who made big moves, the Hornets and Spurs, facing off.
The Spurs are 9.5-point favorites on WagerWeb.com.
Of course New Orleans acquired center Emeka Okafor from the Bobcats this offseason after being embarrassed in the first round of the West playoffs by Denver. The Hornets wanted Okafor because he was an offensive upgrade over Chandler and much more durable — Okafor played in every regular-season game the previous two seasons for Charlotte. So it was a little odd that he didn’t play at all in training camp or in a single preseason game for New Orleans, blaming a toe injury. But he did practice the past few days and apparently will start tonight but be limited to about “20-24 minutes.”
Out for New Orleans for the opener are likely to be two expected contributors, Ike Diogu and rookie Marcus Thornton. Diogu has missed the entire preseason with a knee injury, while Thornton averaged 12.2 points and 2.8 rebounds in seven preseason games. Thornton isn’t hurt, it’s just that coach Byron Scott wants seven-year veteran Devin Brown would be active instead, saying that Brown’s experience would be valuable against the Spurs in the season opener.
San Antonio also felt it needed a big move after being dumped from the playoffs in five games by Dallas last year. So the Spurs added swingman Richard Jefferson and depth in the frontcourt in Antonio McDyess and Theo Ratliff. Now almost every expert believes San Antonio is the only West team that can challenge the Lakers.
But perhaps the key for San Antonio is that both Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili didn’t play international ball this summer and finally got an offseason to rest up and heal.
New Orleans and San Antonio have split the past eight matchups, while the Hornets have dropped three straight and nine of 10 games at the Spurs. San Antonio lost last season’s opener for first time since Duncan joined team in 1997.
NBA Betting at WagerWeb.com
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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