Forward thinking

• By LES EAST
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: May 5, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — Hornets forward David West had a career playoff-high 30 points in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals Saturday. Spurs forward Tim Duncan tied his career playoff low with five points.

Given those numbers, the fact New Orleans prevailed 101-82 shouldn’t be too surprising. What would be surprising is a repeat of such a dramatic disparity when those teams play Game 2 at 8:30 p.m. today.

“Game 2 is usually the first game where you start to see a lot of adjustments,” Hornets coach Byron Scott said.

And it’s usually the loser of Game 1 that’s does the majority of the adjusting. The Spurs need to find a way to get Duncan more shots — he took just nine in Game 1 — and better ones — he made just one.

“They took away our inside game,” Spurs point guard Tony Parker said. “Timmy had a rough night. They double-teamed him every time he caught the ball.

“We need to do a better job of getting him the ball and getting him some shots. We need to get him some easy buckets so he can get his confidence going and establish himself inside. I expect him to be very aggressive and try to get his shot in Game 2.”

Right from the opening tip, the Hornets came with a quick double team on Duncan. For much of the first half — which ended with San Antonio up by four points — the Spurs made them pay as Bruce Bowen made five 3-pointers and Manu Ginobili made three.

In the second half, Bowen missed both of his 3-point attempts and Ginobili missed all four of his.

“I think we did a great job of sticking to our game plan,” Hornets point guard Chris Paul said. “We took a page out of San Antonio’s book. If you watch them over the years, they never get rattled. They always stick to whatever their game plan was, and we did that.

“Bruce Bowen and those guys made a lot of shots in the first half. In the second half, we kept with our game plan and that kept us in it. Finally they started to miss a few shots.”

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said his team’s primary adjustment will be pretty simple.

“We definitely want to play for 48 minutes instead of 24,” he said. “That’s the main crux of what we will talk about.”

They’ll also talk about slowing down West, who missed his first four shots, then made 13 of his last 19. In New Orleans’ three victories gainst San Antonio this season, West has averaged 30.3 points and made 66 percent of his shots.