The San Antonio Spurs (30-14) will travel to New Orleans to face the Hornets (12-35) for their second game on their current back-to-back-to-back set of games.
The Spurs and Hornets will be short-handed tonight. Manu Ginobili and Tiago Splitter will sit out tonight’s game while Hornets’ Jason Smith will be out of action due to serving a suspension for a flagrant two foul on Clippers’ Blake Griffin. Also, Eric Gordon and Emeka Okafor are out while Carl Landry is questionable as is Chris Kaman due to illness. Tony Parker should be back in action tonight after sitting out last night’s win over the Mavericks.
In their last meeting, the Spurs beat the Hornets 93-81 in San Antonio. Tim Duncan led the way with 19 points. San Antonio leads the season-series 2-0.
And as you get ready to watch tonight’s matchup, here are five things to keep an eye on as the game progresses.
- Hope the Spurs score over 100 pints tonight. New Orleans is 0-13 when their opponent scores over 100 points.
- New Orleans brings the “D.” The Hornets have held 37 of their first 47 opponents under 100 points this season.
- New Orleans has only allowed an opponent to score 30 plus points in a quarter 25 times so far this season.
- The Hornets are 10-6 this season when holding an opponent to 90 points or fewer.
- Keep an eye on New Orleans is they are trailing at the half. The Hornets are 2-21 when trailing at halftime.
Matchup to watch: Tony Parker vs. Jarrett Jack. Here is how the two players fared against one another this season (via nba.com).
