Duncan's shot on a rocky road

Call it a "wake"-up call. In the battle of Wake Forest University's two most prominent alumni, Game 1 was a solid effort from the Hornets' Chris Paul . . . and a disastrous one for the Spurs' Tim Duncan.
Duncan shot 1-for-9 from the field in a dismal five-point, three-rebound effort as New Orleans beat San Antonio 101-82 in Game 1. The five points tied his playoff career low, but the other time he did it came in a win over Portland in the 1999 conference finals.
This was a much more somber occasion.
"Things just didn't go my way," said Duncan. "We'll make adjustments . . . and see what happens next game," said Duncan.
"They did a good job," said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "Obviously Timmy didn't have his greatest night, but you've got to give New Orleans credit for that."
Right from the start, the Hornets kept Duncan from getting involved. He had a long, active defender on him in Tyson Chandler, and got double-team help whenever he caught the ball near the hoop. While San Antonio burned that approach early with 3-pointers in the first half, the Hornets stuck to it . . . and the threes stopped finding their mark after the break.
Hornets coach Byron Scott also adjusted his rotation to have widebody Melvin Ely back up Chandler instead of usual backup center Hilton Armstrong. Ely, a former Spur who practiced against Duncan last season, had a quiet night numbers-wise but held his own at the defensive end.
"We just did a pretty good job of coming down and double-teaming him," said Hornets coach Byron Scott. "We didn't really want to give him many good looks or open looks. I thought Tyson did a real good job of fighting him. I thought Mel came in and did a really good job. I thought our double teams were real effective in the first half, but we still gave them too many open shots."
But with San Antonio bringing both length and double-teams at Duncan, it will be incumbent on the other Spurs to force the Hornets to change their strategy.
"It's going to be hard for him to score too many points in this series," said Spurs guard Manu Ginobili. "I thought he did good job in the first half kicking the ball, that allowed us to make those nine 3-pointers. So it's not that he didn't play well. He was being blitzed the whole game, then when he got the opportunities he couldn't make them."
With all that said, Duncan did get some chances and uncharacteristically flubbed them. He missed several short hook shots that he normally puts down, and things seemed to spiral downhill in fourth quarter. At 8:38 a good pick-and-roll opportunity with Tony Parker was lost when he fumbled a pass and out of bounds, and at the 6:16 mark he missed two free throws that could have got him going.
"Seeing him going 1-for-9 is not something you see very often, so we know we're going to have a better TD next game," said Ginobili