Saints alive!

NEW ORLEANS – Reggie Bush danced around defenders who fell over each other trying to tackle him. Drew Brees was back to passing with pinpoint accuracy, picking apart a beleaguered and depleted Arizona secondary.

A little rest was all the Saints needed to shift their league-leading offense back into overdrive.

That, and a visit from Arizona’s porous defense.

Brees threw three touchdown passes, Bush scored on an 83-yard punt return and a spectacular 46-yard run, and New Orleans overwhelmed the defending NFC champion Cardinals 45-14 in their divisional playoff game Saturday.

“So much for being rusty,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “That bye week was critical, getting guys healthy. … I knew we were ready, the way we worked all week and we were confident in what we were going to do.”

One win from their first Super Bowl, the Saints will host an NFC title game for the first time in franchise history next weekend when they play the winner of today’s matchup between Dallas and Minnesota.

“There’s been a lot of firsts since Sean Payton has been here in the organization and we want to keep that going,” Brees said. “We want to bring this franchise a championship.”

Payton, Brees and Bush arrived in New Orleans in 2006, the same year the team returned to its hometown after spending a season as nomads because of Hurricane Katrina. The trio helped the Saints make a storybook run, capturing the franchise’s second postseason win before losing at Chicago in its first NFC championship game.

“There’s no fan base that deserves a championship more than New Orleans and the Who-dat nation,” Brees said. “Just the bond that we have with them is special. They give us strength. They give us motivation, and we want to do it for them.”

Jeremy Shockey caught a touchdown pass in his return from a three-game absence. Devery Henderson and Marques Colston also had touchdown catches, and Lynell Hamilton had a short touchdown run for the Saints.

After its 51-45 overtime win over Green Bay in the wild-card round, Arizona wound up yielding 90 points in the postseason, the most allowed in consecutive playoff games in one season.

“It didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” said quarterback Kurt Warner, who was hoping to lead his team back to the Super Bowl, where it lost to Pittsburgh last year. “It wasn’t nearly as competitive as we wanted it to be, but sometimes you have those days. Today was one of those days for us.”

It didn’t help that starting defensive backs Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (left knee sprain) and Antrel Rolle (concussion) went out in the first half.

“We played with a depleted secondary today,” Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said. “That hurt us. The Saints exploited those matchups.”

Even the Saints’ sometimes soft defense played well, forcing two turnovers, harassing Warner often and knocking Arizona’s 38-year-old quarterback out of the game briefly when, during Will Smith’s interception return, he was blind-sided by Bobby McCray’s block.

Warner was 17 of 26 for 205 yards, but was unable to move Arizona consistently. The Cardinals punted twice and missed a long field goal in the first half before heading into halftime down 35-14. Arizona punted twice more in the third quarter, with Bush scoring on the second to make it 45-14.

Bush finished with 84 yards rushing, 24 yards receiving and 109 yards on three punt returns. Colston caught six passes for 83 yards.

“I knew I was going to get a lot of opportunities today to make plays and just be a difference-maker for my team,” Bush said. “I just tried to make the most of it every time I had the ball.”

The victory wound up being so easy for New Orleans that Payton began pulling his regulars early in the fourth quarter.

It was more like what Saints fans had become accustomed to earlier in the season, when New Orleans was blowing out opponents en route to a 13-0 start.

The Saints then finished the season on a three-game skid, averaging 14.7 points during that stretch. But New Orleans finished as the NFC’s top seed anyway, and players said after their bye week that they’d return healthy and in top form.

Saints 45, Cardinals 14

Arizona	7	7	0	0	—	14
New Orleans	21	14	10	0	—	45

Ari—Hightower 70 run (Rackers kick)

NO—Hamilton 1 run (Hartley kick)

NO—Shockey 17 pass from Brees (Hartley kick)

NO—Bush 46 run (Hartley kick)

Ari—B.Wells 4 run (Rackers kick)

NO—Henderson 44 pass from Brees (Hartley kick)

NO—Colston 2 pass from Brees (Hartley kick)

NO—FG Hartley 43

NO—Bush 83 punt return (Hartley kick)

	Ari	NO
First downs	15	27
Total Net Yards	359	418
Rushes-yards	15-101	34-171
Passing	258	247
Punt Returns	0-0	3-109
Kickoff Returns	5-139	2-37
Interceptions Ret.	0-0	1-5
Comp-Att-Int	24-36-1	23-32-0
Sacked-Yards Lost	1-8	0-0
Punts	6-43.5	4-42.8
Fumbles-Lost	3-1	0-0
Penalties-Yards	3-22	6-44
Time of Possession	23:33	36:27

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—Arizona, Hightower 6-87, B.Wells 5-7, Stephens-Howling 2-4, Wright 1-3, Warner 1-0. New Orleans, Bush 5-84, P.Thomas 13-52, Hamilton 5-23, Bell 6-11, Meachem 1-4, D.Thomas 1-0, Brees 3-(minus 3).

PASSING—Arizona, Warner 17-26-1-205, Leinart 7-10-0-61. New Orleans, Brees 23-32-0-247.

RECEIVING—Arizona, Doucet 8-68, Fitzgerald 6-77, Breaston 4-52, Hightower 3-27, Urban 2-34, Becht 1-8. New Orleans, Colston 6-83, Henderson 4-80, Bush 4-24, P.Thomas 4-18, Shockey 3-36, Moore 2-6.

MISSED FIELD GOALS—Arizona, Rackers 50.