Just after facing the Boston Celtics on the road, the Indiana Pacers hope to go 13-14 at home against a tough 16-11 New Orleans Hornets team. However, I think the Pacers will upset. I am going to put it out there just like that, plain and simple. The Pacers are decent at home with a 7-6 record while the Hornets are 5-8 on the road. They have been struggling as of late, however, too.

Accu Score predicts the Pacers having a 72-percent chance of winning while New Orleans only has a 28-percent chance. The Hornets have so far lost five straight on the road.

The Hornets are recently coming off a painful 111-108 loss to the Detroit Pistons in overtime last night.

“We gave up 59 points in the second half, and that doesn’t count overtime,” coach Monty Williams said. “We just didn’t guard the ball. We kept giving them open 3-point shots when that was all they could hit.”

Chris Paul has done fairly well at Conseco Fieldhouse, averaging 20 points and 9.8 assists per game there for his career in five games. The same can not go for Danny Granger. He may average 24 points per game in his last four games versus New Orleans, but has averaged under 40-percent shooting, which leads to all the losses for Indiana.

The key for a win is depended on Granger. Another key is to stop David West down low. With Roy Hibbert down there, they  could be good to go. This is also going to be an emotional game, at least for Paul and Darren Collison. Both were teammates last season and they look to have a good time facing each other.

Pacers win.

“That’s the point we make with this team. When the ball moves, there’s assists,” coach Doc Rivers said. “Guys are going to get assists and they’re getting that.”

This was Pierce’s first triple-double since 2006 against the Philadelphiaa 76ers.

“I pride myself in trying to be a complete player,” Pierce said. “Throughout the course of my career I’ve worked on a lot of things on both sides of the ball.”

Nate Robinson filled in well for Rondo, putting up 18 points. Shaq returned from injury, and he had eleven points including a great alley-oop jam over Jeff Foster in the game.

“Shaq is a big guy. When he looks up, I get his head nod and he says ‘throw it to the rim’ — that’s what I try to do,” Pierce said. “He doesn’t have to jump too high to dunk the ball, so I just try to put it right next to the rim.”

Roy Hibbert played solid, and had a big game as predicted with 17 points and 14 rebounds. Danny Granger added to it with 19 points, but it wasn’t enough for a Pacers’ victory as they drop to 12-14. The C’s improve to 22-4. Indiana shouldn’t worry, however, as they are the seventh best team in the standings in the Eastern Conference. They’ve been playing well and they are bound to have games like these.

But they gave the Celtics a competition and they showed they could possibly beat them. But sometimes it may take luck. Just ask Granger.

“They can be beat, but you have to play a near perfect game,” he said. “I think the Celtics are more talented than those other teams across the board. They probably have 40 years of All-Star games between [them].”

Indiana knows they can beat them.

But it sometimes they need to be near-perfect to beat this team.