Duncan to test Hornets' West

• By LES EAST
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: May 2, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — The Hornets’ Byron Scott is the NBA Coach of the Year and point guard Chris Paul is a strong candidate for Most Valuable Player.

There’s no postseason award on the horizon for David West, which is just fine with the Hornets power forward, who doesn’t seem particularly interested in getting attention.

“It’s natural when you have a player like (Paul) beside you, but I’ve never been the type of guy that’s been concerned about those types of things,” West said. “I just try to play and be as effective as possible.”

West’s emergence as an All-Star has been one of the major reasons for the Hornets success this season, and he’ll be even more important in the Western Conference semifinal series against Tim Duncan and the defending champion Spurs. The series begins at 9 p.m. Saturday in the New Orleans Arena.

West and center Tyson Chandler will be the players primarily charged with dealing with Duncan, arguably the best power forward in NBA history.

“David and Tyson and those guys are going to have their hands full,” Scott said. “We’ve got to make sure that we take care of our basket first and not allow them to get easy buckets.”

West averaged 23 points and 6.8 rebounds and made 58 percent of his shots as New Orleans and San Antonio split the season series. Duncan averaged 22.5 points and 10.5 rebounds and made 64 percent of his shots.

“We basically know who they are and what they are,” West said of the Spurs. “The ball’s going to go through Tim Duncan. Their defense is going to go through Tim Duncan. They’ve been one of the better defensive teams. We know what to expect with them.

“They’re built around Duncan. Everything they do is kind of predicated on him and that’s why they’ve won, been so good for so long, because they have a cornerstone and he’s unselfish to defer to those other guys like (point guard Tony) Parker and (forward Manu) Ginobili when it’s needed.”

San Antonio, which has won four NBA titles in the last nine seasons, has far more playoff experience than the Hornets. But so did Dallas.

“We know how good they are. We know what they’ve done, but we don’t feel like there’s any pressure on us to win or anything,” West said. “We have a lot of confidence that we know that nobody’s picking us to do much.

“We’re going to compete and play hard. We’re going in with the attitude that if we play the game the right way, stick to our guns and do what we do, we give ourselves a chance.”

West is the only Hornet who had played in the playoffs as a member of the organization before the Dallas series. As a rookie in 2004, he came off the bench in each game of a 4-3 first-round series loss to Miami.