Landry scores 21 as Hornets beat Blazers 95-91

The Trail Blazers trimmed their deficit to five before Paul put New Orleans back up 90-83 with a driving floater off the glass with 1:40 left.

Wallace then drew Okafor's sixth foul and hit both free throws, and Miller added a driving layup to make it 90-87, setting up a tense final minute.

The Hornets improved to 2-1 since West tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Landry has averaged 21.3 points and 7.3 rebounds in those three games.

"Those are some big shoes to fill and we got to just do it collectively," Landry said of West's absence. "Right now, I'm just doing what I can do. Hopefully it'll be better than what it is now. ... We've got keep helping one another because we're not in the playoffs yet."

No, but they're closing in. Ninth-place Houston, which lost to Philadelphia Wednesday, fell four games behind both New Orleans and Portland, with all three teams having only seven games left.

Notes: The Hornets are 25-11 at home, where they play their next four games, starting on Friday night against Memphis. ... Portland dropped to 30-3 when shooting a higher percentage from the field than its opponent. The Blazers shot 50 percent, while the Hornets shot 46.6 percent. ... Patrick Ewing Jr. made his Hornets debut in the second quarter but played only 1:37. ... Wallace had his career-best streak of 24 straight games with at least one steal snapped.