BOSTON – Paul Pierce refused to let the Celtics lose their first game of the season last night in front of a sellout crowd of 18,624 at the TD Garden.

The Celtics captain poured in a game-high 27 points to lead the 4-0 Celtics to a 97-87 victory over the New Orleans Hornets (1-2).

“Paul’s been amazing,” Boston coach Doc Rivers said. “You can see it, just his whole demeanor, everything’s been good… He’s been absolutely amazing.”

Pierce sparked the Celtics offense in the first half by knocking down 8 of his first 10 shots for 20 points. He then helped the Celtics hold off a late second-half Hornets rally by controlling the Celtics offense down the stretch.

“I feel good,” Pierce said. “I think when you put in the work constantly and you focus night in and night out, I think that’s one place where I really grow, focusing on every game, taking it one game at a time and looking ahead. The older I’m getting, the wiser I’m getting I believe and I’m figuring out different things that I can do on the court within the team’s system.”

As good as Pierce was, the Celtics couldn’t put the Hornets away until the final moments.

New Orleans erased an 11-point Boston first-half lead and tied the score at 74-74 on a Peja Stojakovic 3-pointer with 10:17 remaining in the game.

But the Celtics were not going to be denied.

A Marquis Daniels free throw, followed by a Rasheed Wallace 3-pointer and a Shelden Williams dunk gave the Celtics an 80-74 advantage and forced New Orleans to call a timeout to try to stop Boston’s momentum.

It did. Stojakovic (26 points) buried another 3-pointer, but Daniels answered with a layup. Stojakovic came right back with another 3-pointer to cut Boston’s advantage to 82-80 with 6:03 left.

But that’s as close as New Orleans got.

The Celtics executed their plays flawlessly over the final six minutes where they outscored New Orleans, 15-7.

“Give them credit, they made a lot of shots down the stretch,” Rivers said of New Orleans. ” I told our guys, so far this year, we’ve done a great job of each game building and improving. This was not one of those nights.We won the game, and so we’ll take the win; it was good to get the win. But we absolutely didn’t improve tonight.”

The Celtics let Pierce handle the ball during crunch time, and Pierce and Garnett were successful by utilizing the pick-and-roll.

“They have so many weapons on the offensive end, Paul, Kevin and Ray [Allen], and then you got Rasheed [Wallace] to add to that mix so they’re very tough to defend against,” New Orleans coach Byron Scott said.

The Celtics were clicking on all cylinders offensively. They knocked down 53.9 percent of their shots, with Allen (17 points), Garnett (14 points, 7 rebounds), Kendrick Perkins (12 points, 7 rebounds) and Wallace (12 points, 5 rebounds) all playing well. The Celtics outscored the Hornets, 56-26, in the paint.

New Orleans All-Star Chris Paul and Boston up-and-comer Rajon Rondo battled all night long, with Paul, who scored 22 points and dished out 8 assists, getting the better of Rondo, who finished with 10 assists and 6 points.

“Rondo is such a competitive player,” Pierce said. “You also know that Chris Paul is so competitive. Those guys, they compete. Every time they match up with one another, they expect each guy to go at one another. You know Rondo -- what he does for this team is different from what Chris Paul does. Rondo is going to facilitate, get guys open, he’s going to play tough defense. Chris Paul is more of a guy who gets his guys involved but is more of a scorer.

“They’re two different types of players out there on the court, but at the end of the day they are both competitors. You can tell out there the way they compete.”

Rondo and Paul were chirping at each other all game. They played physically against each other.

“They’re both feisty,” Allen said. “Both aggressive, in your face. They take the ball to the whole. Put you on your heels all game long. So I’m pretty sure it can get pretty chippy out there.”

“I just know they are two competitive guys trying to hold the fort down for their team and going out there and trying to give their team the best opportunity to win games,” Hornets forward James Posey said. “You like to see that. It’s not bad at all. I mean that’s all it is – two competitive guys butting heads.”

roblee@projo.com