As the regular season of the National Basketball Association drew to a close this month, some western conference teams seemed to make avoiding the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs about as important as qualifying for those playoffs.

Therefore, when the New Orleans Hornets finished seventh in the conference, they got as much pity for drawing the two-time defending champions as they got applause for rebounding from last year’s woeful season. However, when the ball was tipped Sunday afternoon, the Hornets showed a nationally televised audience that they hadn’t arrived in Los Angeles to die.

The Hornets’ 109-100 victory stunned the sports know-it-alls and the heavily favored Lakers. Hornets point guard Chris Paul led the charge with 33 points, 14 assists, 7 rebounds and 4 steals with only 2 turnovers.

“I just felt good,” No. 3 said after the game.

Clearly.

“They came out extremely motivated and very prepared,” Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant said. “Chris is a handful for anybody to deal with.”

It may have seemed so at times, but Chris Paul didn’t do it by himself. The rest of his teammates committed only one turnover during the entire game, playing essentially error-free ball from start to finish. Rookie coach Monty Williams’ equanimity surely played a part in that. Responding to one player’s early concern that he’d made a mistake, the coach told him, “Don’t worry about a mistake. The last thing we want to worry about is a mistake.”

The three team turnovers committed by the Hornets Sunday tied the record for fewest ever in a NBA playoff game. The Lakers’ big men tower over the undersized Hornets, but still the Hornets outscored them in the paint 52-34. What they lacked in size, the Hornets more than made up for in will.

“It’s a whole another energy, a whole another thing,” Mr. Paul said of the playoffs. It’s an energy that’s fired up the whole New Orleans area. If the team can win the first game, who’s to say it can’t win this series?

Posted: Monday, April 18, 2011, 8:49 PM

By John Reid, The Times Picayune The Times-Picayune
Follow

T-P Hornets beat writer John Reid files Hornets’ practice report video. The Hornets practiced at USC on Monday in preparation for Wednesday night’s Game 2.

LOS ANGELES – The New Orleans Hornets were expected to be overmatched and unable to handle the Los Angeles Lakers’ size advantage or Kobe Bryant’s scoring in their first-round playoff series. 

But it was the Lakers who were  overmatched that led to a stunning Hornets’ 109-100 victory in Game 1 at the Staples Center. Point guard Chris Paul blitzed the Lakers for a team-high 33 points and had 14 assists and seven rebounds.

Game 2 is Wednesday at the Staples Center. The Lakers won the season series against the Hornets 4-0. But Sunday, the Hornets outscored the Lakers 52-34 in the lane and closed out the game shooting 51.9 percent.

 FOURTH QUARTER

What a remarkable performance by Aaron Gray today. He has made all five shots, scoring 11 points. Just drove the middle for a layup to extend the Hornets’ lead to 81-76 with 9:19 remaining. Kobe Bryant’s 3-pointer with 6:31 remaining cuts the Hornets’ lead to 87-85. But Carl Landry and makes to free throws to keep the Hornets leading 89-85 with 6:13 remaining. Chris Paul made consecutive jumpers to extend the Hornets’ lead to 94-87 with 4:24 remaining. Jarrett Jack just made bank shot to extend the Hornets’ lead to 98-92 with 2:23 remaining. Chris Paul just beat Derek Fisher again on a crossover dribble. Aaron Gray goes down holding his right ankle. He finishes making all five shots for 12  points. 

THIRD QUARTER

Two free throws by Kobe Bryant’s ties the score at 65 with three minutes remaining. But Jason Smith answers with a basket. The Hornets are no longer cutting to get open like they did in the first half. Lakers forward Pau Gasol cannot get anything going against the Hornets. He started the quarter with a missed runner in the lane. Gasol has missed seven of eight shots. Trevor Ariza throws elbow in Pau Gasol and gets called for a flagrant foul. Hornets missed their first five shots to open the quarter, allowing the Lakers to go on a 7-0 run that cut the deficit to 55-54. Carl Landry has really attacked the Lakers inside, hitting 6-of-9 shots for 13 points. The Hornets have outscored the Lakers 32-20 in the lane.  Chris Paul’s crossover move left Lakers guard Derek Fisher falling to the floor.    

SECOND QUARTER

The Hornets held the Lakers to 35 percent shooting in the second quarter. The Hornets led by as much as 12. Guard Jarrett Jack came off the bench and led the Hornets with seven points, hitting all three shots. The Hornets made 12 of 19 shots in the quarter. The Hornets forced the Lakers to play at their pace. They continue to attack the rim and spread the floor. Paul had eight assists after the opening quarter. The Hornets’ bigs are playing well. Seldom used backup center D.J. Mbenga, who played for the Lakers last season,  just made an open jumper at the top of the key. The Hornets have opened the quarter on a 7-0 run to take a 33-24 lead, the largest of the game. Lakers start quarter missing their first four shot attempts. Kobe Bryant is 4-of-7 for the game with nine points. After 13 minutes, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum are a combined 2-of-5 from the field. Emeka Okafor draws his third foul after not keeping his feet his set trying to stop Lamar Odom breakaway drive through the middle. Crowd at the Staples Center stunned, even actor Jack Nicholson is skaking his head in disgust. With 54.1 remaining, the Lakers have scored only 16 points in the quarter. Bryant injured his neck after landing hard after a missed 3-point attempt at the end of the quarter.

FIRST QUARTER

Just as Coach Monty Williams desired, the Hornets came out and delivered the first blow. They made six of their first eight shots and forced the Lakers to miss five of their first six to take a 12-4 lead before closing the quarter leading 26-24. The Hornets made 12-of-22 shots and finished even with 12 points scored in the paint. Early, the Lakers woke up and are now on 9-0 run to take 13-12 lead. Emeka Okafor gets second foul, which forces Williams to go to his bench and use Aaron Gray. The Hornets continues to drove to the basket despite going on a stretch of missing five straight shots, Chris Paul ended the drought with a layup before Marco Belinelli made a 3-pointer. The Hornets have come out assertive and they are defending well. Belinelli continues to make big shots s

PREGAME NOTES

In the Los Angeles Lakers’ 4-0 season sweep of the New Orleans Hornets, their average margin of victory was 10.8 points. It was the first time the Lakers swept the Hornets in the season series since 2004-05.

No NBA team has been swept in a regular-season series longer than two games and then beaten that team in the postseason since 1998 when the then Charlotte Hornets beat the Atlanta Hawks. Lakers Coach Phil Jackson is 15-0 in postseason home openers.

Hornets’ Emeka Okafor, Marco Belinelli and Jarrett Jack will be making their playoff debuts. . . .The Hornets ended the regular season ranked fifth in points allowed 94.0 points a game. The Lakers ended as the ninth highest scoring team in the league, averaging 101.4 points.

In the Lakers’ 4-0 season sweep of the Hornets, their average margin of victory was 10.8. It was the first time the Lakers swept the Hornets in the season series since 2004-05.

Hornets Coach Monty Williams is urging his players to attack first by pushing the tempo and defending hard. .  . .Despite suffering a bone bruise in his right knee, Lakers center Andrew Bynum is expected to start.

    

?

LOS ANGELES — Never mind the rings. The Los Angeles Lakers would be a nightmare playoff matchup for the New Orleans Hornets even without the fame, fortune and back-to-back titles.

The Lakers swept the teams’ four-game regular-season series with height and bulk, mercilessly outmuscling New Orleans in the paint. Seven-footers Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were far too much for the slimmer, sleeker Hornets to handle, even when New Orleans star David West was healthy.

Gasol and Bynum realize they’ve got to be big bullies when the series opens Sunday at Staples Center, or what’s expected to be another long postseason run for the Lakers will be in early trouble.

“Our effort and focus is always to get it down low,” Gasol said. “We start off everything from there. We try to do it on a consistent basis, even if it’s not always there. Especially against New Orleans, we have to concentrate on our strengths. If we do that and we’re successful, it will be a huge help down the road.”

Los Angeles’ size advantage was epitomized in an early possession during the clubs’ meeting three weeks ago at Staples Center — one that Emeka Okafor probably would love to forget.

With his back to the basket, Bynum did an imitation of the overgrown kid in a sixth-grade P.E. class, patiently backing down Okafor at least 8 feet — starting outside the paint, until both players were under the basket — before reaching up and calmly dunking.

“They’re some big boys,” agreed Okafor, who finally made the postseason after seven years in the league.

“It’s like a fresh start,” Okafor added. “You can think of those four (regular-season) games as warmups, because they don’t really matter now. You have to play. Everybody’s 0-0. Man up and match up.”

The seventh-seeded Hornets realize this series appears to be a mismatch, yet they’ve thrived on exceeding expectations all season. Even after the franchise that’s owned by the NBA lost West to a left knee injury last month, New Orleans still made the playoffs — only to run into the second-seeded Lakers, most experts’ picks to come out of the West for the fourth straight season.

“We may be the one that’s probably outmatched more than any other series, but that’s OK,” New Orleans coach Monty Williams said. “We’ve been outmatched all year long.”

No NBA team has been swept in a regular-season series longer than two games and then beaten that team in the postseason since 1998, when the then-Charlotte Hornets did it to Atlanta.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson is cautiously confident his club has its collective head together after a stumbling finish to the regular season. Los Angeles lost five straight before back-to-back wins last week, barely keeping the No. 2 seed ahead of Dallas.

The Lakers lately haven’t resembled the club that went 17-1 after the All-Star break. Luckily for Jackson, it’s finally time for the postseason — the one thing in the world that can probably sustain his decorated club’s attention.

“We’ve had a very up-and-down finish, there’s no doubt,” Jackson said. “The last 25 games don’t make sense in a lot of ways. A great winning sequence of games, then losing five in a row. It’s about the wear and tear of a season, obviously, just losing focus at some time.”

Kobe Bryant has been uneasy with the Lakers’ lapses in concentration, but he sounded confident Saturday in a renewed focus. The Lakers insist they aren’t taking New Orleans for granted, studying film of their four victories and vowing to minimize the effectiveness of star point guard Chris Paul and the Hornets’ younger legs.

“Teams definitely know the way to beat us is to get turnovers, get out in transition and run,” said Bryant, who’s likely to be checked by Trevor Ariza, the former Lakers forward and UCLA star.

Bynum expects to be fully healthy after he missed the final two regular-season games with a bone bruise in his troublesome right knee. Forward Matt Barnes also said he’ll play after getting his surgically repaired right knee drained, but backup point guard Steve Blake is likely to be out for a bit longer with chicken pox.

While the Lakers have been to three straight NBA finals with largely the same core that will take the court Sunday, Hornets starters Okafor and Marco Belinelli and key reserve Jarrett Jack will all make their playoff debuts.

“I didn’t imagine it would take this long,” said Okafor, the former NCAA champion at UConn. “Being at Connecticut, the tournament was almost like a foregone conclusion. … Then turn around and be drafted by an expansion team and almost be expected not to make the playoffs, and to finally get here, I want to make it last as long as possible.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Never mind the rings. The Los Angeles Lakers would be a nightmare playoff matchup for the New Orleans Hornets even without the fame, fortune and back-to-back titles.

The Lakers swept the teams’ four-game regular-season series with height and bulk, mercilessly outmuscling New Orleans in the paint. Seven-footers Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were far too much for the slimmer, sleeker Hornets to handle, even when New Orleans star David West was healthy.

Gasol and Bynum realize they’ve got to be big bullies when the series opens Sunday at Staples Center, or what’s expected to be another long postseason run for the Lakers will be in early trouble.

“Our effort and focus is always to get it down low,” Gasol said. “We start off everything from there. We try to do it on a consistent basis, even if it’s not always there. Especially against New Orleans, we have to concentrate on our strengths. If we do that and we’re successful, it will be a huge help down the road.”

Los Angeles’ size advantage was epitomized in an early possession during the clubs’ meeting three weeks ago at Staples Center – one that Emeka Okafor probably would love to forget.

With his back to the basket, Bynum did an imitation of the overgrown kid in a sixth-grade P.E. class, patiently backing down Okafor at least 8 feet – starting outside the paint, until both players were under the basket – before reaching up and calmly dunking.

“They’re some big boys,” agreed Okafor, who finally made the postseason after seven years in the league.

“It’s like a fresh start,” Okafor added. “You can think of those four (regular-season) games as warmups, because they don’t really matter now. You have to play. Everybody’s 0-0. Man up and match up.”

The seventh-seeded Hornets realize this series appears to be a mismatch, yet they’ve thrived on exceeding expectations all season. Even after the franchise that’s owned by the NBA lost West to a left knee injury last month, New Orleans still made the playoffs – only to run into the second-seeded Lakers, most experts’ picks to come out of the West for the fourth straight season.

“We may be the one that’s probably outmatched more than any other series, but that’s OK,” New Orleans coach Monty Williams said. “We’ve been outmatched all year long.”

No NBA team has been swept in a regular-season series longer than two games and then beaten that team in the postseason since 1998, when the then-Charlotte Hornets did it to Atlanta.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson is cautiously confident his club has its collective head together after a stumbling finish to the regular season. Los Angeles lost five straight before back-to-back wins last week, barely keeping the No. 2 seed ahead of Dallas.

The Lakers lately haven’t resembled the club that went 17-1 after the All-Star break. Luckily for Jackson, it’s finally time for the postseason – the one thing in the world that can probably sustain his decorated club’s attention.

“We’ve had a very up-and-down finish, there’s no doubt,” Jackson said. “The last 25 games don’t make sense in a lot of ways. A great winning sequence of games, then losing five in a row. It’s about the wear and tear of a season, obviously, just losing focus at some time.”

Kobe Bryant has been uneasy with the Lakers’ lapses in concentration, but he sounded confident Saturday in a renewed focus. The Lakers insist they aren’t taking New Orleans for granted, studying film of their four victories and vowing to minimize the effectiveness of star point guard Chris Paul and the Hornets’ younger legs.

“Teams definitely know the way to beat us is to get turnovers, get out in transition and run,” said Bryant, who’s likely to be checked by Trevor Ariza, the former Lakers forward and UCLA star.

Bynum expects to be fully healthy after he missed the final two regular-season games with a bone bruise in his troublesome right knee. Forward Matt Barnes also said he’ll play after getting his surgically repaired right knee drained, but backup point guard Steve Blake is likely to be out for a bit longer with chicken pox.

While the Lakers have been to three straight NBA finals with largely the same core that will take the court Sunday, Hornets starters Okafor and Marco Belinelli and key reserve Jarrett Jack will all make their playoff debuts.

“I didn’t imagine it would take this long,” said Okafor, the former NCAA champion at UConn. “Being at Connecticut, the tournament was almost like a foregone conclusion. … Then turn around and be drafted by an expansion team and almost be expected not to make the playoffs, and to finally get here, I want to make it last as long as possible.”

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

WESTWEGO — The New Orleans Hornets are perhaps the biggest underdogs in the NBA playoffs, but the underdog role is one they’ve grown accustomed to.

Considered a playoff long shot at the start of the season, the Hornets were the biggest surprise of the early part of the season. They were the last team to lose a game, winning their first eight; started 11-1; and a rode a roller-coaster that came to a stop with them in seventh place in the Western Conference.

That brought them a best-of-seven, first-round matchup with the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers, who have won the last two NBA titles. The second-seeded Lakers, 57-25. won 11 more games than the Hornets and swept the four regular-season game against New Orleans, prevailing by an average of 10.8 points.

So virtually no one outside of the Hornets’ inner circle expects anything except more of the same when the series begins Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles. Coach Monty Williams conceded that New Orleans might be the most overmatched team in the first round.

“It’s tough enough to win one NBA game,” Williams said after practice Friday. “Now we’re playing against the defending champions and everybody has put us under the guillotine already before we’ve even played a game.

“It’s been like that all season. Nobody has expected anything from this team. That’s why when we win two or three games in a row everybody is surprised. We’re used to it. Nobody expected us to be here.”

The expectations for the Hornets are further diluted by the way they finished the regular season, losing their last three games by an average of 22 points.

“None of that means anything,” guard Chris Paul said. “That’s the thing that I’ve learned in the playoffs. It’s one thing to hear people speculate about what they think this team is going to do, but this league is all about match-ups.”

Match-up-wise, things don’t look too good for New Orleans either. Aside from having to deal with future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, the Hornets have to contend with Los Angeles’ size, a major factor in its back-to-back titles. The Lakers start a pair of 7-footers in Andrew Bynum, who’s expected to play despite a bone bruise in his right knee that he suffered Tuesday, and All-Star Pau Gasol.

New Orleans will counter with 6-10 Emeka Okafor and 6-9 Carl Landry, who was acquired in a trade in February and started the last 10 games after David West, the Hornets’ leading scorer, was lost to a season-ending knee injury.

“You’ve got to use your basketball IQ and never take a possession off,” Landry said. “When the big guys are running down the court trying to get position on the block, you’ve got to make sure you bump them and meet them by the 3-point line and not make the catch on the block as easy. And if they do get it, take some of that 24-second clock down and when they have to take a shot, it’s going to be a rushed shot and a contested shot. Just make it harder on those big guys.”

The Hornets have relied on their clock management and team defense to mask their offensive deficiencies, even before West was hurt. They allowed an average of 94.0 points for the season, but L.A. scored 103, 101, 101, and 102 against them. The Hornets allowed an average of 110 in the last 11 games.

“Obviously we’ve got to turn our defense up,” Paul said. “We’re not all going to grow overnight. We’re not going to get taller. So we’ve got to figure out ways to manage.”

Posted: Friday, April 15, 2011, 11:12 PM

By John Reid, The Times Picayune The Times-Picayune
Follow

T-P Hornets beat writer John Reid files Hornets’ practice report for Friday.

In response to Jimmy Smith’s article advancing the New Orleans Hornets’ first-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers, nola.com reader Urnge_Drank wrote:

“Here are what I think are keys to this series (of course it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure these out):

1. Our bigs (Emeka and Gray) need to stay out of early foul trouble. On top of that we need to play their 3 headed big monsters (Gasol, Bynum, and Odom) tough and we need to out rebound them. If they have the advantage in rebounds, it could get ugly.

2. Paul needs to take control of this team and be the leader that he is. I just read where he had fluid drained out of his surgically repaired knee and thats hampering him now a bit. But this is the playoffs, play hard or go home early.

3. If we can take a victory from game 1 or 2, its a series baby!

4. Get to the free throw line. Get the lakers bigs in early foul trouble, make your free throws and force them to change their game.

Go hornets! I support my team and we all should be doing the same. We have supported the saints all these years, and now we have to do the same with our hornets.”

In response to Jimmy Smith’s report on the New Orleans Hornets facing the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the NBA playoffs, nola.com reader 504ever wrote:

“Hornets are going to shock a lot of people with the fight they show in this series.The lakers will NOT just walk thru the Hornets as if we’re just some type of hallway on their stroll for another championship.No sir, these bees are going to swarm like never before, and although the lakers may advance, the will remember that they were in one helluva fight. A lot of you forgetting 2 VERY important facts:1) this is CP3′s return trip to the playoffs,Ariza is playing against a team that told him you aren’t good enough, and this is Mek’s 1st playoff appearance, that alone means those 3 guys are going to play like they have more than something to prove.2) These games will be nationally televised and CP3 ALWAYS plays like a man possessed when the world is watching, and there’s no better team in the league to show off against when the entire world is watching than the lakers. This team lead by Monty Williams will show the type of fight we have never seen them show, oh wait that’s right, they have shown that when the world says they can’t, THEY DO! Anyone remember the 11-1 start against the NBA’s elite, the lakers might win, but it won’t be the cake walk all the national “experts” and the bandwagon “fans” are predicting.

“I’M IN…………GEAUX HORNETS!!!”

Memphis, Tenn. — Throughout the fourth quarter Sunday night, New Orleans Hornets point guard Chris Paul watched from the bench and looked miserable.

He glared after seeing the Memphis Grizzlies’ players repeatedly cut through the lane for layups and dunks. Paul watched the entire fourth quarter from the bench, unable to avoid having his first scoreless game of his career or save his team from suffering an embarrassing 111-89 defeat to the Grizzles in front of 17,041 at the FedEx Forum.

With two games remaining in the regular season, the Hornets (46-34) are expecting to be revving up their intensity, contesting shots to force low- percentage shooting and execute their offense to near flawless perfection in order to get tuned up for the playoffs.

Instead, the Hornets permitted 60.3 percent shooting by the Grizzlies. They gave up 56 points in the lane and were outrebounded 41-34.

Defense has been the Hornets’ stable the entire season, one of the biggest factors why they clinched their first playoff berth since 2009.

But the Hornets could not match the Grizzlies’ intensity or their physical strength inside. Memphis center Marc Gasol had his way for 16 points on five of five shooting, most coming on dunks and layups. Zach Randolph made five of seven shots for 14 points that equaled Sam Young’s total. O.J. Mayo came off the bench and shredded the Hornets for 18 points.

“It was nice to do what we did,’’ Grizzlies Coach Lionel Hollins said. “In order to be a decent team, you have to take care of home and we did that.’’

With the loss, the Hornets slipped a game behind the Portland Trail Blazers in the race to land the sixth seed and avoid having to play the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in the first round.

The Hornets, however, remain in seventh place ahead of the eighth-seeded Grizzlies (46-34), despite the season series ended tied at 2. New Orleans, which play Utah tonight at the New Orleans Arena, gained the tiebreaker because they have a better divisional record (9-6) than the Grizzlies (8-8).

But the Hornets displayed no satisfaction from staying in the same spot in the standings they did after defeating the Phoenix Suns on Friday night. New Orleans Coach Monty Williams kept their locker room door shut tight for more than 20 minutes, and his players mostly spoke about overcoming their setback.

“Tough loss. They beat us, and the credit goes to them,’’ said Paul, who missed all six of his attempts from the field. “I just couldn’t make anything. It’s the first time for everything. We know we are a defensive team, and that wasn’t us tonight.’’

After trailing 52-48 at halftime, the Hornets were outscored 30-19 in the third quarter to make it 82-67.

From there, it looked much the same way it did in New Orleans a week ago when the Grizzlies routed the Hornets 93-81.

When the Hornets looked for a push to get back in the game, they watched the Grizzlies surge on a 12-3 run before extending their lead to 26 in the fourth quarter. At one point, the Grizzlies shot 70 percent from the field.

“We played against a team that again hit us in the mouth,’’ Williams said. “I thought they were more physical than us. We were out of sorts offensively and defensively; we just didn’t have that edge that we needed.’’

The Hornets lacked patience offensively, forcing up errant shots and breaking repeatedly breaking off from their offensive sets before getting to their second and third options.

Early on, the Hornets made eight of their first 13 shots and took an eight-point lead. Guard Marco Belinelli got on a hot streak, hitting three consecutive shots before scoring 16 points in the first quarter, which included four 3-pointers. He was held to two points over the final three quarters.

“The Grizzlies turned up their defense, and they played tougher than we did,’’ New Orleans guard Willie Green said. “You just got to give them a lot of credit. We just have to continue to play and build as a team.’’

In the past few days, the New Orleans Hornets and Memphis Grizzlies became the last two Western Conference teams to clinch playoff berths.

Neither is locked into the final two postseason seeds, however.

Hoping to make a push for the West’s sixth seed, the Hornets and Grizzlies both look to continue their late-season surges when they meet Sunday at FedEx Forum.

New Orleans (46-33) secured a playoff berth by beating Houston on Wednesday, and Memphis (45-34) clinched the conference’s final spot Friday with a 101-96 win over Sacramento.

The Grizzlies, who have won eight of 10, are heading to the postseason for the first time since 2006.

“I’m ecstatic,” said point guard Mike Conley(notes), who had 12 points and eight assists Friday. “For guys that have been here for the long ride, we’ve had a lot of ups and downs. This team has fought. We’ve had some guys go down. We’ve gone through a lot of adversity. For us to be in this situation at the end of the season, clinching a playoff spot is (exciting).”

Although Memphis is in the postseason, it still has the opportunity to move up in its last three regular-season contests.

The Grizzlies are one game back of seventh-place New Orleans and 1 1/2 behind sixth-place Portland, and have games remaining against each.

“For the most part, we are where we want to be,” Memphis’ Tony Allen(notes) said. “It’s on us to continue this journey.”

The Hornets, winners of three straight and six of eight, are obviously in a similar position. They’re just one-half game back of the Trail Blazers and own the tiebreaker, having won three of four in the season series.

New Orleans may be trying to avoid a first-round matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers, who are likely to claim the No. 2 seed. The two-time reigning NBA champions outscored the Hornets by an average of 10.8 points in sweeping the season series.

“We want to go into the playoffs full-steam ahead and not backing into it,” Chris Paul(notes) said after Friday’s 109-97 win over Phoenix. “We just continue to work and keep trying to get as good as we can.”

Paul had seven points and 12 assists against the Suns, as reserve Willie Green(notes) carried New Orleans’ offense, connecting on his first 12 shots and finishing with a season-high 31 points. The Hornets won for the fifth time in seven games since losing leading scorer David West(notes) to an ACL injury.

New Orleans won the first two meetings of the season against the Grizzlies before losing to them 93-81 at home last Friday.

Paul had 13 assists but finished with five points on 2-of-8 shooting, and Memphis held the Hornets to a season-low 12 points in the first quarter.

The Grizzlies have been playing sound defense lately, limiting their last 10 opponents to an average of 89.2 points. Memphis is 22-3 this season when holding opponents to 91 points or fewer.

Zach Randolph(notes) led the Grizzlies against New Orleans last week with 28 points. He scored 27 on Friday, and has reached the 20-point mark five times in the last six games after scoring 19 or fewer in each of his previous five.

Randolph has scored at least 20 in 11 of his last 13 games versus the Hornets.