"Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears a Crown"

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."  Although Shakespeare's words ring truer today for the reigning king of the NBA, the Lakers, it is also true for many of the what were thought to be true pretenders to the crown.  The top challenger in the West, San Antonio went down in Game One to Memphis while the other top seeded western contenders had their own struggles in their openers.  Things didn't go much better in the East where the team with the league's best record, Chicago trailed all game until a 16-1 spurt saved them at the end.  Miami's crowned heads struggled mightily with the lowly Sixers.  Orlando, a number four seed,went down to the Hawks and Boston looked its age struggling with the new look Knicks.  The only real lessons from the first games of the first round seemed to be that nothing is certain this year and that the battle for the crown looks more up for grabs than at any time in recent memory.  Another old adage about kings certainly applies here, "Trust no one."

Although Memphis' win over the West's best certainly ranked as the most shocking, the Lakers' loss to New Orleans is not far behind.  The up and down monarchs, who all season long proclaimed that they would show their royal metal when playoff time came, stumbled out of the gate, allowed the pretenders to control the game and left the court battered and bloodied by a team everyone felt had the least chance of challenging them.
The Hornets won three of the four quarters, kept L.A.'s big men quiet and held the defending champions in check all game long.  Before the game the Lakers talked about how glad they were to be through the exhausting and to them boring  regular season and proudly proclaimed that they were now ready to play their best, confident that the crown they own is secure and safe.  They are certainly not saying that today.

Experts predicted that the Hornets lack of size would be a major issue against the Lakers with their two seven footers Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol and their 6'10" forward Lamar Odom.  The experts were wrong.  The Hornets dominated the middle, forced the Lakers to shoot jump shots, made Kobe Bryant work for every point and controlled the pace of the game.  At the offensive end Chris Paul showed one of the Lakers' biggest weaknesses, their inabilty to handle quick guards.  Paul ended up with 33 points (11-18 shooting) and 14 assists.  His backup, Jarrett Jack added 15 points and five assists.  That means those two alone either scored or assisted on at least 86 of the Hornets 109 points (that assumes 2 points per assist which means it could actually be worse.  It doesn't inclue the extra point that comes on an assist on three pointers or passes that didn't get assists but led to free throws). That's 79% of the Hornets scoring.  Chris Paul had as many rebounds as Gasol and Odom combined (6 and 1 respectively).  Although the game looked close most of the way even that was misleading.  The Lakers couldn't make stops when they needed them.  They followed up their only strong quarter (the third), where they held New Orleans to 18 points with their worst defensive quarter in the fourth when they gave up 36 points.  The one thing that seemed to be keeping the Lakers in the game aside from Kobe's scoring and Ron Artest's strong performance was the Hornets penchant for missing free throws.  At one point they had made only seven of sixteen free throws (9:56 left in the fourth quarter) but they made 16 of their last 17 the rest of the way.  The missed Hornets free throws made the game seem closer and Artest's heave that went in at the end of the first half cut New Orleans 11 point lead back to eight.The Hornets, who along with the Lakers were among the leagues best at avoiding turnovers, had only three.  The Lakers had 13 which were turned into 17 points.  L.A. started the game by falling behind at 12-4 and then went on a nine point run to take a lead for a few minutes before falling behind for good. The closest the Lakers would get was to get within a point a few times, the last one at 75-74 with ten and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter.  They got back within three with six minutes left (90-87) but Kobe had a three pointer go in and then come out and that was that.

This was a game the Lakers expected to win on the inside but the Lakers didn't seem to make a real effort to find points there.  Gasol was only two for nine shooting, Odom made half of his six shots and Bynum had 13 points on seven shots.  That means the Laker big men had only 22 shots all game long.  Kobe alone had 26 (for 34 points) of which he made half.  Paul got his 33 points on only 18 shots.  The real difference maker on the inside was Hornet sub Aaron Gray who made all five of his shots in his twenty minute stint and finished with 12 points and a sprained left ankle.

Belinelli had a hot hand in the first half with ten points but then Artest started guarding him and he didn't score the rest of the way.  The Lakers need to find a better way to contain Chris Paul and Jarrett Jack and they need to run their offense more crisply while making a much more concerted effort to force the ball inside.  The Lakers played 82 games to earn the number two seed in the West and assure themselves home court against everyone in the West except San Antonio and then in their first outing in the playoffs, gave that home court advantage away.  L.A. may have Steve Blake back Wednesday from his bout with chicken pox) but it's going to take a lot more than that for them to get back in this series.  The Laker bench needs to play far better.  The only bench players to score for the Lakers were Odom (10) Shannon Brown (8) and D League call-up Trey Johnson who had three. The Hornets got 39 points off their bench.

The playoffs are all about adjustments and it will be interesting to see what changes the Lakers make.  One change they need to make is to stop switching big men onto Chris Paul after pick and rolls.  Time after time Gasol found himself outside chasing Paul and then allowing him to shoot open threes.  That will never work.  Another is that they need to force him to the baseline where he's not going to be able to be as effective although with a player as talented as Chris Paul, that is not going to be easy.  The Lakers will also have to move quicker to wall off the lane and try and limit Paul's penetration and that won't be easy either.  On the other end the Lakers need to remember they have a huge advantage inside from both a size and talent standpoint.  If Gray's ankle keeps him out Wednesday then Hornets will have an even bigger hole to fill.  Hornets' starting center Okafor fouled out and played only 21 minutes, scoring only four points.  The only other big man the Hornets have is former Laker D.J. Mbenga.

The Lakers will trust in their coach and their resilience to get them back in this series and a win Wednesday night is paramount.  That trust will be in question though as the Lakers try and adjust to dealing with the unease that comes when someone begins to threaten the head that wears the crown.