2011 NBA Playoffs: New Orleans Hornets Shocking Game 1 Win vs LA Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers came into Sunday's first-round Game 1 heavily favored to win, having swept the New Orleans Hornets in the season series. With Hornets All-Star forward David West out for the season, the contest at Staples Center looked to be nothing but a formality. Yet the seventh seed underdogs pulled out a victory—and not a close one at that. Here's why:

The Lakers were watching the other channel. 

When the Lakers-Hornets game tipped off, the San Antonio Spurs, the Lakers' top Western Conference rivals over the last decade, were at the tail end of a stunner themselves, giving up Game 1 to the Memphis Grizzlies—an expansion team that had never before won a playoff game. 

Perhaps the Lakers were already thinking about who they might face in the conference finals. They'd better turn off the locker room television, otherwise they'll be catching the rest of the playoffs from the comfort of their living rooms.

Chris Paul filled up the stat sheet. 

The New Orleans All-Star point guard had 14 assists and 33 points—17 of them in the fourth quarter. He took turns breaking down Pau Gasol and blowing by Derek Fisher. "I actually came over to the game early, and I walked from the hotel here," Paul said. 

Maybe the Lakers should fly in some New Orleans fans to wait outside Paul's hotel, if only to slow him down.  Nobody on the Lakers could—including Ron Artest, who guarded him for a while near the end of the third quarter, and picked up two fouls doing so.

Pau Gasol had a mediocre afternoon, which may be the kindest description of the Lakers All-Star forward's play written this weekend. 

With only six rebounds and eight points on 2-of-9 shooting, Gasol looked destined to be the whipping boy for the series opener. He even literally took a beating. A two-inch long gash opened up on his cheek after connecting with DJ Mbenga. Oklahoma City's Kendrick Perkins has called Gasol "soft," and the label was mumbled under the breaths of frustrated Lakers fans everywhere. Gasol had better rediscover his mojo. 

As any kid who's been pushed around in a schoolyard will tell you, if you want people to stop calling you a coward, you need to shut the bully down. In the case of New Orleans, who is playing defense against Gasol by committee, the Lakers forward needs to do it with numbers—starting with scoring in double figures.

Quotes were obtained from the Los Angeles Times.