GT: Spurs vs. Hornets

[Nolan]

When: 8:00 PM ET, October 31, 2012
Where: New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, LA

Starting Lineups:

Spurs:
PG - Tony Parker
SG - Daniel Green
SF - Kawhi Leonard
PF - Tim Duncan
C - Boris Diaw

Hornets:
PG - Greivis Vasquez
SG - Austin Rivers
SF - Al-Farouq Aminu
PF - Anthony Davis
C - Robin Lopez

Well after a long and very quite summer its finally time for the regular season. This year we're going to start the season off against the very young but also very talented Hornets.

Anthony Davis has looked very dangerous in preseason and with Eric Gordon's status for this game unkown Davis should be our biggest concern.

Hopefully this is going to be the start to another great season for us.

Go Spurs!!

[Donald Kaufman]

No Manu already? Not a good sign. We should still beat NO but we got OKC the following night in the home opener against the new look Thunder.

[co_laper]

Yeah, no Manu but I think we should still take this game despite being in their home arena. I think Hornets is without Eric Gordon too right?

What I wanna see is Kawhi hitting his shots. So far during preseason, he's shooting the ball like we expected him to shoot his rookie year. And I mean most everyone expect Kawhi to be a bad shooter last year. He wasn't, but he's pretty bad in preseason. They're all flat and not even close to making it. Not one of those shots where it just rimmed out and stuff.

I'm hoping to see less Bonner. Dejuan Blair has looked really good this summer and I think he really deserves minutes.

No Manu, so I'm sort of hoping to see Nando play. But my guess is that Patty plays and Gary Neal slid to his natural position and take Manu's role. Crossing my fingers for Nando.

[Nolan]

^
Gordon's questionable, if he does play he'll be coming off the bench.

[LewisnotMiller]

Woah...kinda quiet GT...lol

So, anyways...Kawhi Leonard. LOVE the way he goes about it. Hits the corner shot, hustles his butt off, gets out and runs. And he looks like he's picking on/bullying New Orleans (not in a nasty sense, just all over them) which is exactly what you want from a vet playing a young team. The kicker being, of course, that he's only a second year guy. Big fan.

[LewisnotMiller]

Never thought I'd say this, but Aminu is getting it done. If Davis can show the sort of hustle/athletic combo they'll have the scariest transition forwards in the league...! Kinda a fairly big stretch to take a good game from Aminu and assume he can do it consistently, but DAMN he can move.

[Nolan]

Never thought I'd say this, but Aminu is getting it done. If Davis can show the sort of hustle/athletic combo they'll have the scariest transition forwards in the league...! Kinda a fairly big stretch to take a good game from Aminu and assume he can do it consistently, but DAMN he can move.

I was about to praise Aminu as well. I was never a fan of the kid coming out of Wake and I saw him as an instant bust, but he's really starting to put it together and he could become a very dangerous player.

But back to the game, I didn't get to see all of it but from what I saw Kawhi was outstanding and if he continues to play this way we can do some damage in the west.

[Black_Jack21]

Tight game Hornets gave us a run.

Rather concerned with out offense in the fourth. With no Manu it was just Parker dribbling for ages before a wild drive which finished with a step back jumpshot.

Love the adjustment they made after Davis was fronting TD and hit him with those high-low post feeds.

Loved Leonards game, he looked a little tentative on some of his corner shots but the ones he did take were money. Hustled on defence and made a heap of steals.

Davis had a cracking first game and showed he belongs.

No Blair tonight, is he injured as well?

Nice game to get the blood pumping, bring on OKC

[co_laper]

I will just say, our defense sucked. Only first game of the season, but the game showed us that nothing has changed. Defense shows only in spurts. Hornets got a lot of backdoor cuts and easy baskets at the rim. Pick and Roll defense was awful.

The only thing that kept us on that game was Tim Duncan IMO. He was playing like his old self out there.

Again, I was hoping Kawhi shows us something different. Or atleast be used in a different way where I can start hoping for something. Fair to say, he didn't. Kawhi is basically the same guy he was last year. We all know he's a defensive guy, hustles, and has knack for steals. Made his corner threes tonight, unlike preseason. I'm just disappointed by the fact that there's no major improvement made to his game.

I think I'm with everyone that feels Kawhi's improvements is what will keep us at the top. I'm just not seeing anything at all. If Kawhi is to be the face to this franchise, I really want to see major improvements year in and year out.

Yeah, no Blair tonight. I really want to see him out there. I'm really done with Bonner on the floor. No Nando either. With no Manu, the Spurs had Duncan out there with the second unit.

I'm glad we got the win, but that certainly wasn't a game to feel good about. Hell, we have everybody back from last year. Nobody plays any different than last year. New Orleans is a newly assembled team. We won the game in the last couple of minutes. It's one of those situations where it could go either way and it was our luck. There's no reason it should be that close. I remember 2 minutes left in the game and New Orleans had a 2-3 point lead.

[TwentyOne920]

First half D is still gonna be a problem with Pop's substitution patterns. With Manu out the second unit won't produce enough O to counterbalance their D.

[Black_Jack21]

I agree with our defense being a major issue.
They were making Jason Smith look like an allstar candidate.

Bonner was utterly useless in this game. I think he hit the one shot and constantly got beat by his man.

Splitter was inconsistent but was always fighting on D. Had some nice touch around the rim in the second half.

As for Nando, if this game is any indication Neal will play backup PG, mills being the 3rd stringer.
You'd think if there was ever a time to play Neal at the 2 it would be a game with Manu being out.
We could be waiting a while to see him play any meaningful time.

[co_laper]

Yeah the two Hornets I'm surprised with was Jason Smith and Vasquez. Jason Smith looked pretty good. Hustles. Got a good range on his shot. More athletic than he seems. Vasquez ran the team pretty well.