THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Chris Paul showed why he’s a contender for league MVP honours Sunday, and the Toronto Raptors had a front-row seat.
Paul finished with 20 points and 16 assists, dismantling every defensive scheme Toronto threw at him, en route to a 118-111 Hornets victory that ended a four-game Raptors’ homestand.
"You try trapping him, but he backs out of it and splits it," said Raptors coach Sam Mitchell. "He made some passes and I don’t even see how he found the guy. There’s definitely a legit argument that he’s the best point guard in the league and he’s a definite MVP candidate."
Chris Bosh had 21 points and seven rebounds to top Toronto (37-36), while Carlos Delfino added 18 points, Rasho Nesterovic had 14, and Jamario Moon finished with 13. T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon finished with 10 points apiece, while Calderon added 11 assists, and Kris Humphries had 10 points.
David West led all scorers with 32 points, while Peja Stojakovic added 25 points for New Orleans (50-22).
Former Raptor Morris Peterson finished with eight points in his first trip back to the Air Canada Centre since he departed last summer for New Orleans.
Toronto struggled against New Orleans from the opening whistle, as West scored 16 points in the first quarter and the Raptors found themselves trailing by 14 points, a deficit that turned out to be insurmountable against the No. 1 team in the Western Conference.
When Paul wasn’t finding an open teammate, he was driving to the basket for a seemingly easy layup.
"You really have to give it to them, we switched up our schemes, tried to do different things, but they had seen it all," said Bosh. "There wasn’t anything that we could throw at them to throw their offence off."
Toronto pulled within eight points early in the third quarter, but the Hornets took off on an 18-2 run that put the visitors up by 24. The Hornets led 101-79 with a quarter left in the game.
With the second units on the floor for both teams in the final few minutes — including Linton Johnson, who saw his first action as a Raptor — Toronto made a run. A three-pointer by Moon, then baskets by Humphries and Calderon made it a six-point game with 1:34 left, bringing the capacity crowd of 19,800 at the Air Canada Centre to its feet.
"Their bench just ate our lunch," said Hornets coach Byron Scott.
But Paul pulled off his sweats and re-entered the game, firing passes to West for a basket and an alley-oop to Tyson Chandler for an emphatic dunk with 37 seconds left had the ACC crowd heading for the exits, as the Raptors lost a crucial matchup with just nine games left in the regular-season.
"(Paul) comes back in and he makes two plays, I’m not going to say simple plays, but he makes it look easy," said Mitchell. "He’s just tough."
The good news for the Raptors: it was their last game of the season against a Western Conference team.
"We’re done with them," Bosh said. "Peace to all those guys. I hope they have fun duking it out, we’re just worried about the East now."
Peterson, who played all seven seasons of his NBA career in Toronto before signing as a free agent with the Hornets last summer, received a standing ovation during team introductions and then kneeled down to kiss the floor at centre court.
"It just means a lot to me," said Peterson, who spent Saturday in Toronto doing some shopping and having dinner with friends. "I spent seven years here and they watched me grow as a player and a person and to come back meant a lot … I wanted to show my appreciation."
.Numerous fans were wearing Peterson’s No. 24 Raptors jersey, and after the game, he threw his jersey and his shoes up into the crowd.
"I really cannot put into words how special it was to come back and get the kind of reception that I did," Peterson said.
Johnson, signed to a 10-day contract by Toronto on Thursday, played the final 7:46 and finished with six points.
The Raptors briefly held the lead in the early going Sunday, but the Hornets used a 16-2 run to take an 11-point lead midway through the first quarter. New Orleans would stretch it to14 points before taking a 37-28 advantage into the second.
The Hornets controlled the second quarter, leading by 14 points several times. A three-pointer by Bosh pulled Toronto within eight points but Paul responded with a three of his own with five seconds left in the half and the Hornets were up 69-58 at the break.
A three-pointer by Peterson with 5:38 left in the third quarter had the Hornets up 87-63, their biggest lead of the game to that point.
NOTES : The Raptors beat the Hornets 97-92 on New Years Eve in New Orleans… The game was the fourth of four in a row at home for Toronto. The Raptors are in Charlotte in Monday and Atlanta on Wednesday. They’re back home to host Charlotte on Friday.
