Raptors thump Hornets to make it 4 straight wins
Kawhi Leonard scored 22 points and Kyle Lowry added 16 points and 14 assists as the Toronto Raptors continued their winning start to the season, downing the Charlotte Hornets, 127-106, in National Basketball Association action Monday night.
The Raptors never trailed in the game, leading by as many as 25 points.
Toronto (4-0) is one win away from the franchise record of five to open the season, set in 2015-16. The Raptors host Canadian Andrew Wiggins and the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday.
Kemba Walker led Charlotte (2-2) with 26 points. Jonas Valanciunas had 17 points and 10 rebounds for Toronto.
Leonard, who was given the night off Saturday in Washington on the second half of back-toback games, returned to action as coach Nick Nurse used the same starting lineup — Lowry, Danny Green, Leonard, Pascal Siakam and Serge Ibaka — as he did in Friday’s win over Boston.
Nurse had used three different starting lineup in the three previous games.
Leonard, continuing to shake off the rust from his injury-disrupted 2017-18 season in San Antonio, found his shooting range early — often with some shake-and-bake moves to befuddle the man guarding him.
The game featured two of the hottest points guards in the league in Walker and Lowry, who have both been scoring from distance. Earlier Monday, Walker was named Eastern Conference player of the week after becoming the first player in Charlotte franchise history to reach the 10,000-point plateau.
Entering play Monday, Walker had an NBA-record 19 threepointers through the opening three games of the season (a record previously held by Danilo Gallinari with 18 in 2009-10) while averaging a league-leading
35.3 points.
Walker missed his first three attempts from outside the arc but finished 2-of-7 to tie Steph
Curry’s record of 21 in the first four games of his MVP campaign in 2015-16.