Everything seemed to be breaking the Pelicans' way heading home for Game 3, having stolen home-court advantage, and facing a cold-shooting Suns team without Devin Booker.
But then Chris Paul happened. After the Pelicans took a 91-90 lead in the 4th quarter of a back-and-forth affair at the Smoothie King Center, CP3 responded by doing what he's done so many times before: Getting to his spot again, and again, and again, and again. He plugged four consecutive pull-up jumpshots in a 17-point 4th quarter barrage that left the Pelicans on the wrong end of a 114-111 loss.

But that's no surprise to Pelicans coach Willie Green. He's seen this many times before, many of which came as he was an assistant coach with the Suns before joining the Pelicans.
"There’s a reason he’s one of the top 75 players of all time," Green said. "Late-game situations he can try to set the table and control the game, which he did late."
Paul finished with 28 points after setting the table for much of the game, which resulted in a crushing 28 points from Deandre Ayton. Backup JaVale McGee added 15 more, with the work in the paint making up for 15% shooting (4-26) from 3-point range.
"It’s a combination of him being great, especially in late-game situations, that’s when he wants the ball," Green said. "And then we have to be better defensively, that’s just the deal. We have to get through screens, and then we have to navigate if we read, not allowing him to get to his sweetspots. And I thought he did that too many times tonight"
MORE FROM WILLIE GREEN
WHAT MADE AYTON SO DIFFICULT TO STOP?
“He’s a big boy. … We have to do a better job of getting to Chris and then multiple effort back to Ayton. But they did a great job of looking for him, throwing it in the post and he did a great job of attacking. We’ll be a bit better come next game.”
THOUGHTS ON JAXSON HAYES' EJECTION
“I didn’t see the play at all. I didn’t even look up at the scoreboard. I’ll have to go back and look at it.”
ON LARRY NANCE VS JONAS VALANCIUANAS MINUTES
“Sometimes the game requires JV and we’ll play him, sometimes it’s Larry. When Chris gets it going in the pick and roll like that and we’re not stopping him and we have to make some adjustments, which we did. He still hit some shots but we tried to mix it up down the stretch a bit.”
WHAT'S NEXT?
“It’s a long series. We’ve just got to continue to stay with it, continue to wear them down. Those are the things that he can do well, but we have to do our part, especially early in the game. We can’t turn the ball over. We have to make sure we get back in transition, things like that, and then they scored aa bit too many points in our paint. We’ll be fine, long series. We stole one at their place then they came and got one at our place. Give them credit, they played hard, played together.”
The series sticks in New Orleans for Game 4, set to tip off at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday (ESPN) at the Smoothie King Center.