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Lakers outplayed by Hornets in Game 1 loss
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By Broderick Turner
April 18, 2011
Los Angeles, CA — It was a simple admission by Lakers Coach Phil Jackson.
"Their bench played better than ours," Jackson said.
No one would have predicted that before the Lakers and New Orleans Hornets got together for Game 1 of the Western Conference first-round playoff series at Staples Center on Sunday.
This is a Lakers team with one of the best benches' in the NBA. This is a Lakers team that has Lamar Odom, a multipurpose player many think will win the league's award for sixth man of the year.
Who knew anything about Jarrett Jack, Aaron Gray and Willie Green, the primary reserves for the Hornets who did in the Lakers?
But they played a major role in helping the Hornets shock the Lakers, 109-100, as New Orleans took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series that resumes in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
The Hornets got 39 points from their reserves.
"I thought they were really effective," New Orleans Coach Monty Williams said.
The Lakers got 21 points from their reserves. Six of those points came in the final 31 seconds of the game, when the Hornets had the game in control.
Jack, a 6-foot-3 point guard, led the way for the Hornets' reserves, scoring eight of his 15 points in the fourth quarter.
Gray, a 7-0, 270-pound center, had 12 points on five-for-five shooting. His only issue arose when he suffered a sprained right ankle with 1:07 left. He was helped into the locker room. The Hornets say Gray will be examined again Monday.
Green had half of his eight points in the fourth quarter.
"When our starters are playing, we constantly talk to our group," Jack, who was five for six from the field, said of his fellow reserves. "We tell each other to be ready individually. I might say, 'Be ready AG [Aaron Gray].' Willie might say, 'Be ready Jarrett.' We're constantly just keeping each other into the ballgame. Like I said, we just try to come in and sustain that same energy and effort that the starters put out every game."
Odom led the Lakers' reserves with 10 points on three-for-six shooting. But he had just one rebounds and two assists in 30 minutes 50 seconds.
Odom just wasn't the dominant player the Lakers have seen so much this season.
Shannon Brown had eight points on four-for-six shooting.
But Matt Barnes, who had missed the last two-regular season games because of a sore right knee that he had drained last Thursday, missed both of his shots and wasn't as active as he normally is.
"I wouldn't try to pinpoint it," Odom said. "But we never controlled that game. From the beginning to the end, at any point, we never controlled the momentum or had the game or played our style of basketball."
The Hornets' bench scored 15 points in the fourth quarter.
Jack, who played all 12 minutes in the fourth, was the first of New Orleans' reserves to stand tall in the fourth.
When the Lakers cut the Hornets' lead to one point early in the fourth, Jack scored on a floater in the lane.
Then Green scored off a pass from Jack, and Gray scored off a pass from Jack.
By the time Green scored to give the Hornets an eight-point lead later in the fourth, it had become clear that New Orleans' substitutes were ready to play.
"We're not here to win just one game," Jack said. "We came to be greedy. Obviously they are going to come out with a little bit more ammunition in Game 2. We've got to be ready for them."
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