New Orleans Hornets @ New York Knicks NBA Point Spread Pick

New Orleans Hornets @ New York Knicks NBA Point Spread Pick: New York is going to be up and down as they figure each other out, but losing Chauncey Billups to an injury (unsure of the severity, but it’s worth checking into) will hurt their chances of beating anybody – even a New Orleans Hornets team that has lost 8 of their last 11, including a 96-90 loss at Toronto last night. Everybody is going to get up to play the Knicks for a few reasons – they just got Carmelo in the biggest trade of the season, and New York doesn’t play defense so everybody coming in is trying to score a 120 points on one of the worst defenses in the league.

This game will be interesting for a couple reasons, though – one is both these teams are looking for playoff bids in their respective conferences, and another is because Chris Paul is the third piece of the threesome that “wanted to go play together in New York to form their own Big 3” – I’m sure many remember the talk about Chris Paul’s speech at Anthony’s wedding this summer, and so far two parts of that speech have come true. Could a 3rd happen?

I like the road team in this one. The Knicks lost a tough battle with Orlando last night, and while their loss wasn’t nearly as bad as the Hornets loss to Toronto, the loss of Chauncey is a huge one. I expect David West to score a lot of points from the high and low post, Chris Paul to run around and distribute freely, and Trevor Ariza to do as good a job as anybody can do on Carmelo Anthony.

Chauncey’s loss is the biggest reason, but I expect the Hornets to turn it around in their marquee match-up with the new Knicks.

New Orleans Hornets (+3.5) @ New York Knicks (3/2)