Your Atlanta Hawks can cling yet again onto the 3^rd seed in the frail Eastern Conference with a road victory tonight against the… oh, c’mon! Who are we fooling, here, really? The Hawks don’t win games in San Antonio!

The last time the Hawks came out on top in The Alamo City, Paul Walker was just beginning to ponder whether he oughta be in pictures. Absent stars David Robinson, and Sean Elliott for most of that season, aging Spurs leading scorer Dominique Wilkins and two future NBA coaches, Avery Johnson and Vinnie Del Negro, could do little to stop Steve Smith and Mookie Blaylock from going almost wire-to-wire for a road win on February 15, 1997. The perennially playoff-bound Hawks pushed new coach Gregg Popovich’s 12-37 Spurs team closer to the top spot in the 1997 Lottery.

Flash forward to 2013, and Nique is now on the Hawks’ broadcast team, discerning good shots from not-good shots, tough shots from heat checks. He’ll be critiquing that 1997 lottery pick, first-overall selection Tim Duncan. The surefire Hall-of-Famer, 14-time All-Star and four-time NBA champion has yet to taste defeat at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks in San Antonio (14-3), either at the cavernous Alamodome or the comfier confines of the AT&T Center, site of tonight’s action (8:30 PM Eastern, SportSouth, FoxSports Southwest).

Now the same age Dominique was in 1997, the 37-year-old Duncan is not putting up nearly the numbers of his MVP-caliber past (12.4 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 42.5 FG%). Yet he keys the second-best defensive team in the league (95.9 opponent points per 100 possessions; 91.6 opponent points per game).

The Hawks’ offensive ineptitude of late (41.8 FG% last 5 games; 91.1 PPG last 8 games) won’t experience a reprieve at the hands of the Spurs and Duncan, who ranks 9^th in blocks per game (1.9 BPG) while holding a defensive rating of 93.7 (9^th in NBA), a stat he led last season and ranks second all-time in over the course of his NBA career. How Al Horford gets his buckets tonight will be interesting to see, knowing how well Duncan has scouted Al’s Jab Step of Death.

Is the Student ready to become the Teacher? Fat chance, it seems so far. But that shouldn’t stop Popovich from welcoming his longtime lead assistant Mike Budenholzer back to San Antonio with open arms. Right, Pop?

"I don't want to see Bud. I saw him for like 20 years. Why do I need to see him again?"

Alrighty, then!

The cool reception from Bud’s former immediate supervisor will pale in comparison to the fire-and-brimstone exhibited on Saturday night, during San Antonio’s first home loss of the season to wannabe rival Houston. The Spurs’ head coach turned a-Pop-lectic at the end of the first half, when Rockets coach Kevin McHale moved into the coach’s box on a Spurs inbound play, standing next to Duncan the way Joel McHale stands alongside stupid TV show videos. The ire seemed to spur some energy in San Antonio, who stormed back from a 23-point deficit to hold a 3-point lead in the closing minute. San Antonio succumbed after a James Harden three and a pair of Spurs defensive miscues sealed the win for Houston.

Watch out for the lob! San Antonio had been known as Lob Desert until lately, as the Spurs executed just a single lob dunk all last season. They’ve doubled that total in the last two games, with crafty Manu Ginobili conducting the alleys.

The Hawks will continue to have a tough time producing points, particularly without Kyle Korver, who missed this afternoon’s shootaround according to C-Viv. Korver (50.0 3FG%) could help offset the Spurs’ Marco Belinelli, the league’s most accurate long-distance sharpshooter. Belinelli is connecting on threes at a blistering 56.5% clip.

Lou Williams will get the start at off-guard, and while he won’t mind, he’ll be pushed to stay on the floor much longer than Budenholzer would probably like. San Antonio commits the fewest fouls (17.4 PF/G) and allows the fewest free throw attempts (17.2 FTAs/G) in the league, but they’ll need to find a way to earn threes the old-fashioned way with Teague and Williams on the floor together. While Danny Green hasn’t been quite as cold-blooded as his pet boas since thrilling in the 2013 NBA Playoffs, he and Kawhi Leonard have been constricting opponents at the three-point line. The Spurs have ceded just 6.4 three-point field goals per game (5^th fewest in NBA), and foes have been shooting just 28.6% from 25 feet out when Green is on the floor.

Boris Diaw won’t be able to offer up any Double Bird Salutes to opponents on his former team. Despite dislocating his left middle finger in the first half of the Houston game, his fingers are taped together on the hand, allowing him to be cleared for tonight’s game. Shooting at a career-high 63.5 FG% on two-pointers while registering a career-low 1.6 APG, Boris is calling his own number with drives to the hoop, exhibiting a level of offensive aggressiveness not seen in his Spurs tenure, and effectiveness not seen in his career. Diaw, Ginobili and Belinelli have been the stars of the Spurs’ “Foreign Legion” reserve group that has caught the league off-guard so far.

San Antonio will need stout defense on Paul Millsap to allow Duncan to key in on Horford. If Diaw has a hard time grasping or touching the ball, Popovich may turn to some lightly-used options to spell Duncan and Tiago Splitter. The Man Formerly Known As Pendergraph, forward Jeff Ayres was bothersome to the Hawks in their first-round playoff series with Indiana last season. Illustrating the benefits of having a nearby D-League team, the Spurs dispatched center Aron Baynes along with Nando de Colo for the Austin Toros’ season opener yesterday, only to bring them back in time for tonight’s game. Unlikely to be used tonight, former Hawks preseason tryout and Chicago Bull Malcolm Thomas was recently called up by the Spurs from Austin. Thomas broke the Summer League record for rebounds with 22 in a game with the Bulls this past July.

Jeff Teague (team-leading 17.3 PPG) will be needed to stick to the shifty Tony Parker (team-leading 18.3 PPG, only Spur averaging more than 15 per game) as best he can the whole game. Both players are a little banged up, Teague injuring his ribs in the Wizards game while Parker played Monday after mildly spraining his ankle last week at Oklahoma City. Popovich has a few more reliable PG options at his disposal, including Cory Joseph, who started against Orlando on Sunday, and Patty Mills (44.7 3FG%).

As Gray Mule duly noted, the Wizards were killers with the corner threes all night long, and the Spurs are even more accurate marksmen than Washington is beyond the arc (39.3 3FG%). Atlanta’s John Jenkins (64.7 FG%) and Mike Scott (64.0 FG%) rank 1^st and 3^rd in the NBA for opponent 3FG% when they’re on the floor. Dennis Schröder, Jenkins, and Shelvin Mack also give up threes at percentages above 40 percent above-the-break. This would not be a good day to pair these guys up against Belinelli, Green, Mills, and/or Matt Bonner.

Go Hawks!

~lw3