METAIRIE, La. -- Roman Harpers recent experience tells him it would be short-sighted for the Saints to succumb to pessimism this early in the season.The Saints are 0-2 for a third straight year, and the previous two campaigns didnt turn out well; New Orleans went 7-9 and missed the playoffs each time.But Harper spent his past two NFL seasons with another team -- defending NFC champion Carolina -- which has been among the leagues best since its seven-game winless streak in 2014.Going two straight months in Carolina my first year there without winning a game was very frustrating to me. I didnt understand it. I didnt accept it very well, Harper said, crediting Panthers coach Ron Rivera for doing a great job keeping everybody together.The Panthers won their final four regular season games of 2014 to win the NFC South, then opened last season on a 14-game winning streak, meaning they won 18 straight regular season games immediately after a stint in which theyd tied one and lost six straight.Now Harper, who returned this year to the club with which he began his career, hopes New Orleans can earn a tide-turning victory when its hosts NFC South Division rival Atlanta on Monday night. The Superdome is bound to be infused with energy and emotion for that game, when the Saints and their fans will mark the 10th anniversary of the renovated stadiums re-opening after Hurricane Katrina.If we got some kind of mojo or some kind of magic, its got to be this one, Harper said. So weve got to be desperate, man. Weve got to go out here and get this win. Winning just breeds confidence throughout a locker room and it breeds success.While the Saints margin for error is thinning, they havent been losing by much. The Raiders needed a late 2-point conversion to pull out a 35-34 victory in the Superdome in Week 1 and the New York Giants hit a field goal as time expired to beat visiting New Orleans 16-13 on Sunday.The Saints much-maligned, injury riddled defense looked its best in a while, producing three turnovers in New York while keep quarterback Eli Manning and the Giants offense out of the end zone. But this time, New Orleans normally prolific offense sputtered and the Saints were sunken by a blocked field goal attempt that the Giants returned for a touchdown.You have to learn how to not lose a game before you can ever learn how to win, Harper said. Those are the things and growing pains that were going through right now, where were doing certain little things, where yesterday the blocked field goal cost us the game. Other than that, we played pretty good.On defense, that is.Drew Brees and the Saints offense, which led the NFL with 507 yards in Week 1, finished with 288 at New York. Brees passed for one TD, down from four a week earlier. He still has not thrown an interception, making him the only QB since at least as far back as 1960 to be on an 0-2 team despite passing for five TDs without an interception during the first two weeks of the season.Weve gone down to the wire in two straight games and unfortunately come out on the losing end, Saints tight end Coby Fleener said. Hopefully we can not get discouraged by that and realize were one or two plays away.Heading into training camp, Saints coach Sean Payton emphasized the importance of trying to win preseason games to cultivate a competitive edge. He also said it would be important for his relatively young team to get off to a fast start in the regular season. Instead, the Saints havent yet won any preseason or regular season games.There is only one way to work yourself out of it, and its coming back and having a better week of preparation, Payton said Monday. I was encouraged with a lot of things that I saw on tape and yet discouraged in some areas. And in these days after here, we have to be brutally honest with ourselves, not only with the players but the coaches as well. We have to be better.Game notes Payton said after studying video of rookie Wil Lutzs blocked field goal in New York that the problem was the blocking along the right side of the line. He did not fault a play by name, but cited B-gap pressure between the guard Andrus Peat and tackle Terron Armstead. ... Payton said cornerback P.J. Williams, who was carted off the field Sunday and hospitalized to be evaluated for a possible concussion or spinal injury after taking a knee to the helmet, was traveling back to New Orleans on Monday afternoon. Payton said Williams was diagnosed with a concussion, but added that the news was otherwise positive, which is real encouraging.---Online: AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/AP-NFL Fake Vans 2020 . McCarthy, a player who played some games in the second tier for Wigan at the start of this season, would go on to shine inside Evertons midfield, outplaying the man he was brought in to replace, on one of the grandest stages in English football. On Saturday, it was fitting that Manchester Uniteds most recent dagger into the chest was delivered by Frenchman Yohan Cabaye, a wonderfully gifted central midfielder who put on an outstanding effort for Newcastle at Old Trafford. Fake Vans . - Chris Tierney snapped a tie with a power-play goal late in the third period as the London Knights rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Erie Otters 5-3 in Ontario Hockey League action on Wednesday. https://www.vansfake.com/ .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. Fake Vans For Sale . The giant slalom world champion slipped during her first run in the morning, landing on her back and then twisting forward before getting her leg caught in the protective material on the side of the slope. Fake Vans From China . Sgt. Eric ONeal says most of the arrests at Monday nights game were for public drunkenness, though one person was taken into custody on suspicion of trying to steal a seat from the stadium. MIAMI -- Players have an open disdain for back-to-back games in the regular season, even while understanding theres no way around them when trying to wedge 82 games into 170 days.So some teams are spending part of this preseason trying to get ready.NBA teams get to largely dictate their own preseason schedule, and nine clubs opted to have at least one set of back-to-back games on their exhibition slate. Most are going on this weekend, with five teams -- Toronto, Cleveland, Miami, Golden State and Chicago -- playing either the first or second night of a back-to-back on Friday.Its good practice for us, Toronto coach Dwane Casey said. We want to approach it the way were going to approach it a few weeks from now, because theyre coming. And so the way we mentally approach back-to-backs ... weve got to get excited about it. Even though deep down we know its exhibition, weve got to get into a mindset of how do we prepare mentally, how do we prepare physically.Most teams around the league avoided them entirely. And Torontos isnt a true back-to-back, per se -- the Raptors were playing Cleveland on Thursday, then stepping out of the NBA realm to play the Argentinian club San Lorenzo on Friday.The Heat and the Los Angeles Clippers are subjecting themselves to preseason back-to-backs twice. And it could be argued the Heat are playing three of the dreaded sets, when factoring in their open scrimmage on Monday night that was the prequel to Tuesdays preseason game against Brooklyn.I want our guys to feel a lot of different situations, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.Clippers coach Doc Rivers said he didnt mind them since they allow for more practice time, and he structured his schedule accordingly. Outside of his back-to-backs on Oct. 4 and 5 and Oct. 17 and 18, his team plays only twice during the 11-day span in between.I just think eight games is too many ffor guys, Rivers said.dddddddddddd I think this is nice. You play guys minutes, almost all of them. You give some guys a rest in some of them. I think its good.The Heat, who open their first back-to-back in San Antonio on Friday, have two in the span of a week. That closely mirrors something that happens during the course of the regular season. The NBA has made strides in recent years to reduce how many times each club has to endure games on consecutive nights -- or the even-more-dreaded four-games-in-five-days, something thats now a rarity.Last year I hated it in the preseason, said Heat forward Justise Winslow, entering his second season. But now I realize the purpose of it, just so guys can feel it, feel what it feels like mentally and physically.Minnesota plays its preseason back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. The other two teams with them on their exhibition schedule are Charlotte and New York, clubs that decided put them toward the end of their preseason slate.Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said it provides him with a chance to evaluate some players whose roles might still be unclear -- and that, as one might expect, stars like Carmelo Anthony wont log big minutes like they would in the regular season.I dont really anticipate playing Carmelo 35 minutes one night and 35 minutes the next, Hornacek said. So it might give an opportunity to some of these other guys, especially there are some of these guys trying to make the roster. Give them a little more playing time in those back-to-back situations to see what would happen if they were on your team. So for evaluation purposes its good but playing wise, you try not to kill these guys early.---AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in New York contributed to this report. ' ' '