In theory, no NBA coach looks forward to meeting the San Antonio Spurs in a playoff series, and there’s a familiar litany of reasons why: The defending champs have won four titles in nine years, they play fundamentally sound basketball, the Spurs’ defense is rock-solid, and their versatile offense is led by three All-Stars. But New Orleans Hornets coach Byron Scott might be an exception to this theory about the Spurs. He probably wanted a shot at San Antonio — his last one was the kind of close loss that makes one pine for a rematch.

Scott’s previous playoff tilt with San Antonio came in the 2003 NBA Finals, when his Nets put up a surprisingly strong showing against the Spurs, losing in six games. The Nets had won 49 games in the vastly inferior Eastern Conference, while the Spurs had won 60 in the Western Conference. But any good Nets fan will tell you that their team could have made Game 7 had they gotten a hot shooting quarter from Steve Kerr, and had Kenyon Martin avoided a bad case of the flu. Scott outcoached his counterpart, Gregg Popovich, in that series, and he has probably wanted to another chance.

The second-round series between the Hornets and Spurs is his chance now, and judging by the tactics in Game 1 — a 101-82 New Orleans win on Saturday night — he’s been eager for it. Game 2 tonight will show if Scott is a master tactician, or if he just got lucky on Saturday.

Scott teased the Spurs’ defense in Game 1 by running the bread-and-butter play of the Hornets’ offense — a pick-and-roll for point guard Chris Paul — twice in their first three possessions. Then he put it away for the rest of the half and let Paul work on breaking down his defender, Bruce Bowen. The pick-and-roll worked and led to open shots for the Hornets, who dashed out to an 8-0 lead. Then the offense sputtered, and the Spurs went ahead, verging on a double-digit lead at times in the second quarter.

Scott stayed with his game plan, and the Hornets evened the game in the third quarter, thanks to isolations for forward David West, whose vast array of post moves and soft touches on the perimeter may create matchup problems for the Spurs during the series. On Saturday, he scored 30 points on 13-23 shooting. Early in the fourth quarter, with the Hornets closing in on a commanding lead in the game, Scott had his team resume running the pick-and-roll. The Spurs failed to react quickly, and the Hornets put Game 1 away.

Scott wasn’t stubborn, though. On defense, he began with a plan to double-team Tim Duncan whenever he got the ball down low. Duncan rotated the ball out to the perimeter, where the Spurs were on fire. During a five-minute stretch of the first quarter, the Spurs, primarily Bowen, hit five of seven from downtown. Scott then scrapped the double-team, forcing Tyson Chandler to defend Duncan one-on-one, and the Hornets got lucky. Although Chandler, a long-limbed defensive specialist, is the kind of defender that gives Duncan trouble, he nly had an off night, scoring only five points on 1-9 shooting.

So for Game 1, Scott abandoned his bread-and-butter offensive play and instead ran his offense through his second-best player. What Scott is trying to do is bait Popovich into moving his ace defender from Paul — whom Bowen guarded very well (Paul’s stat line was impressive, 17 points and 13 assists, but some of it was accumulated after the game was out of reach) — to West. This might slow West, but in exchange, the pick-and-roll play could become lethal. Spurs’ point guard Tony Parker, the player most likely to guard Paul if Bowen isn’t doing so, doesn’t fight through screens with the same tenacity. The nightmare of every Spurs fan right now is letting Paul drive unguarded to the basket. He is lightning-quick and an excellent decision maker. In a play that could prove apocryphal for the series, Duncan came into the lane to stop a drive by Paul late in the fourth quarter of Saturday night’s game — and Paul simply tossed a lob pass to Chandler for a rousing slam dunk.

On defense, Scott has more tinkering to do. Duncan isn’t going to shoot 1-9 again. The Spurs were only 3-14 from behind the arc in the second half, so Scott will have to bring double-teams again. Duncan will almost certainly be the focal point of the Spurs’ offense tonight. Chandler’s backup is Melvin Ely, a journeyman who lacks the starter’s length, so keeping Chandler out of foul trouble will be essential. Scott would love a replay of Game 1, but he’s been around too long to think that will happen.

The Spurs have lots of adjustments to make for tonight’s game. One of the biggest might be to change the starting lineup. They tried three different defenders on West and all three failed miserably. This summer, the Spurs signed Ime Udoka to be a Bowen clone, and now’s the time to use him. Have Udoka guard West and keep Bowen on Paul. This approach may leave the Spurs playing three-on-five offense — but the Spurs’ three are Duncan, Parker, and All-Star swingman Manu Ginobili.

The Hornets won Game 1 in the second half, where they outscored the Spurs 56-33. Fixing the defense will have to be their first priority. This figures to be a low-scoring series, so there may be nights where 82 is enough for a win — unless Scott has another bunch of tricks up his sleeve.

mjohnson@nysun.com