Hurricane Paul buries Bulls
NEW ORLEANS -- As the Bulls flew home late Monday night, every player, coach and flight attendant should have taken time to re-evaluate their personal list of all-time greatest point guards.
Chris Paul has played well against the Bulls before, but his performance on this night was beyond description. He piled up 37 points, 13 assists, 3 steals and erased the Bulls' 9-point, fourth-quarter lead faster than the green hurricanes disappeared on Bourbon Street.
The Bulls led 93-84 with 7:01 remaining, but thanks to Paul's one-man blizzard, the New Orleans Hornets finished the game on a 24-4 run and sprinted to a 108-97 victory.
"He has a certain will, to where when things are not going right, he can just will us to a win," said Hornets guard Jannero Pargo, a former Bull. "I've only seen that in a couple other players in my lifetime."
"He's one of the best," added Bulls coach Jim Boylan. "There's no doubt about it. It's not just us he's picking on. He's doing it to the whole league."
The Hornets (45-21) should have been vulnerable Monday because all-star power forward David West missed his second game with an ankle injury. New Orleans also played Sunday in Detroit, while the Bulls were coming off two days of rest.
Paul also was reported to have a sore ankle, but any suggestion that he was less than full speed is ludicrous.
The third-year guard from Wake Forest started the comeback by catching his own deflected pass in the lane and throwing it in the basket. Later, he scored on a pair of driving layups, tied the score with a 3-pointer, then tossed a lob to ex-Bulls center Tyson Chandler for the go-ahead bucket with 2:26 remaining.
"This one was a little more special than normal, to be honest with you," Chandler said of his point guard. "This may be one of the best performances I've seen from him as far as taking over the game."
The Bulls did a decent job of keeping Paul out of the paint early in the game by using Joakim Noah to double team him off of high screens. But he seemed to find another couple of gears late in the fourth quarter.
While the Paul Show was in progress, the Bulls turned completely inept on offense. Besides making just 1 basket in the final seven minutes, they also coughed up 6 turnovers.
After the Hornets tied the score, the Bulls committed turnovers on their next three possessions. Drew Gooden threw consecutive bad passes, then Thabo Sefolosha had the ball knocked off his leg out of bounds.
Ben Gordon (31 points) and Gooden (23 points, 12 rebounds) had good offensive games, but the Bulls needed more.
"We just kind of get on a slide in the fourth quarter, a couple of questionable shots we take just seem to lead to more questionable shots," Boylan said. "You call timeout and we addressed that issue and we tried to play together, but the game got physical. We weren't able to take care of the basketball vs. their physical play in the last eight minutes."
The Bulls (26-40) must wash the green uniforms quickly and get ready for tonight's game against New Jersey at the United Center.
Atlanta moved into sole possession of eighth place in the East by beating Washington on Monday. The Nets are a half-game back in ninth and the Bulls are 2½ back in 10th.