Lakers - Back to the "old ways"

 106 - 90 Lakers.
To paraphrase Manny Ramirez, the Lakers went back to the "Lakers being the Lakers".

Let's start with the "Bench". The non productive bench of recent history, featuring the "Killer Bees" (Barnes, Brown, Blake) and  Lamar "Mr. Kardashian" Odom, earned their paycheck for the week by outscoring the Hornets bench 29-14.

Points in the paint.
 Finally, the Lakers decided to go inside to their big men and take advantage of their height. The Lakers outscored the Hornets 42-30 in the paint.

Balanced scoring.
Lamar put up his "Sixth Man of the Year" stats (13pts, 7rebs, 2 asst) Pau and
Andrew pounded the inside, combining for 34pts, 18 rebs, 6 asst, and 5 block shots.
Fisher finished with 13pt, and Ron Artest 11.

Kobe being Kobe.
Speculation about Kobe Bryant's injured left foot/ankle remained in the air throughout the first quarter.  He removed all doubt with a massive drive and dunk on Emeka Okafor in the second quarter, followed by an array of acrobatic shots , bring back images of years past. He finished with 19 pts, 2 reb, and 4 assist.

Chris Paul is human. His by line - 20pts, 4 reb, 12 assist wasn't enough to overcome the lack of offensive production by most of the team. Paul, Trevor Ariza (his 22 pts, tied his playoff career high), and Marco Belinellli's 21, combined for 63 of their 90 pts.  In the end, the lack of additional weapons made it impossible to overcome Kobe and the rest of the Lakers' balanced attack.

Hopefully, their play last night points to the Lakers finally starting to round into their championship form rather than it being anomaly.

A win Thursday in New Orleans, and  the Lakers  move on to the second round.