{"id":14448,"date":"2011-03-25T17:02:18","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T22:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14448"},"modified":"2011-03-27T13:37:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-27T18:37:24","slug":"desert-showdown-new-orleans-hornets-at-phoenix-suns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/desert-showdown-new-orleans-hornets-at-phoenix-suns-14448\/","title":{"rendered":"Desert Showdown: New Orleans Hornets At Phoenix Suns"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Hornets AT Phoenix Suns<\/strong>
\nMar 24, 2011 at 10 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Phx -3<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Phx -5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 196<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 197.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Phx -215 \/ NO +185<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Phx -215 \/ NO +180<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Grant Hill will see time at PF tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No team likes to admit it when it happens, but every once in a while, an injury is a death blow.\u00a0 That’s definitely the case for the currently 7th seeded Hornets.\u00a0 They just received news that they will be without star forward David West the rest of the season.\u00a0 \u201cThe way he was lying down, I could tell he was seriously hurt,\u201d Hornets center Emeka Okafor said.<\/p>\n

The Hornets just don’t have the pieces to pick up the slack that will be left in the scoring department.\u00a0 West doesn’t bring much more than a solid jumpshot and decent post game, but outside of Chris Paul, it’s the best thing the Hornets have going for them.\u00a0 Phoenix hasn’t been that bad, it’s just that the Western Conference remains the deeper and tougher conference for making the playoffs.\u00a0 If Phoenix were in the East they might be the 6 seed.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER In 10 of New Orleans’ 14 games.\u00a0 New Orleans is 4-2 SU in their last 6 games and they are 1-3-1 ATS in their last 5.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of their last 7 on the road and the total has gone OVER In 8 of their last 12 against the Phoenix Suns.\u00a0 New Orleans is 2-5 SU in their last 7 games against the Suns and they are 1-5-1 ATS in those 7 games.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 5 on the road in Phoenix and New Orleans is 3-6 SU in their last 9 road games against the Suns.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Phoenix’s last 8 games and Phoenixb is 5-0-1 ATS in their last 6 games.\u00a0 Phoenix is 4-2 SU in their last 6 games at home and they are 3-6 ATS in their last 9 games at home.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 8 of Phoenix’s last 12 games against the Hornets.\u00a0 Phoenix is 5-2 SU in their last 7 games against the Hornets and Phoenix is 5-9-1 ATS in their last 15 games against the New Orleans Hornets.\u00a0 Phoenix is 5-1-1 ATS in the last 7 matchups against the Hornets and the total has gone OVER in all 5 of the last 5 home meetings against the Hornets.\u00a0 Phoenix is 6-3 SU in their last 9\u00a0 games against the Hornets and they are 5-11 ATS in their last 16 home games against the Hornets.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris Paul vs. Steve Nash<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a matchup of two of the best point guards in the league right now.\u00a0 Both employ similar styles of dribble penetration mixed with kickouts and shovel passes to big men.\u00a0 Nash has been at it longer but Chris Paul is as crafty as they come, too.\u00a0 Paul is the better defender, by far, of the two, so he does get the edge in this matchup, in my opinion.\u00a0 Nash will dazzle the Hornets and give them a lot of trouble, but Paul will ultimately be able to slow him down more than he will be able to slow Paul down.\u00a0 Expect Paul to attempt to use his size on Nash and get a little physical and aggressive.\u00a0 He’s not a big point guard, but Nash is that small.<\/p>\n

Emeka Okafor vs. Marcin Gortat<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gortat is coming off a 24 point, 16 rebound, 2 block game in a 2 point loss to the Lakers.\u00a0 He’s accumulated sixteen double doubles since joining the Suns and is averaging 12.4 points per game and 8.9 rebounds per game in 29 minutes of play.\u00a0 Okafor was a much more touted draft pick than Gortat, selected 2nd overall, and for stretches in his career, Okafor has been very good in fact.\u00a0 He’s undersized as they come, standing closer to 6’7″ than 6’10”, but he has long arms and has a quick jump.\u00a0 He appeared to be a better offensive version of Ben Wallace coming out of Connecticut, but he never really panned out like many thought and hoped he would.\u00a0 Gortat stands head and shoulders above Okafor and should have no problem getting some easy dunks and put backs around the rim.\u00a0 He may have been nearly the last pick in the draft, but Gortat has evolved into the big man that teams covet with lottery picks.<\/p>\n

Given the loss of David West, the Hornets have to be just trying to dupe themselves into believing their season isn’t over.\u00a0 The Suns haven’t been particularly impressive, but are a respectable 20-15 at home.\u00a0 New Orleans is lackluster on the road (17-20) so a loss here wouldn’t be unexpected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Hornets AT Phoenix Suns Mar 24, 2011 at 10 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Phx -3 Current Line: Phx -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 196 Current Total:\u00a0 197.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Phx -215 \/ NO +185 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Phx -215 \/ NO +180 No team likes to admit it when it happens, but every once in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[837,836,577,576],"class_list":["post-14448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-chris-paul","tag-new-orleans-hornets","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-steve-nash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14448"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14476,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14448\/revisions\/14476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}