"Kobe Bryant stared at his questioner and nodded. Concerned? Yes, he's concerned. He'd just watched Chris Paul dance through his Los Angeles Lakers for 33 points, sending the two-time defending champions to the most unlikely of losses in these playoffs. Nothing the Lakers did during the afternoon suggested they had shaken off the malaise that smothered them the last few weeks of the regular season.

That switch everyone thought the champs would flip as soon as the postseason started turned out to be only a dimmer. The Lakers couldn't match the wattage of these wounded New Orleans Hornets. They couldn't slow Paul, nor could they contain Aaron Gray, a 7-foot backup center whose Wikipedia entry begins with this nugget, for clarity's sake: "… Not to be confused with the actress, Erin Gray."

"I thought Gray outplayed our big guys," Phil Jackson would later say, and no one asked if he meant Aaron or Erin.

So, yes, Kobe's concerned. He took his seat on the dais Sunday afternoon looking more resigned than rabid. He didn't snarl at reporters or curse for the cameras. He spoke in a measured, matter-of-fact tone. His ferocity had been left on the court or in the locker room, safe enough away, at least, to spare himself the risk of another $100,000 fine.

And yet when someone wanted to know if the Lakers would have benefitted from better distribution of their shots – or, say, fewer from Kobe – Bryant made this point unmistakably clear:

"If the effort isn't there," he said, "I'm not going to sit around and wait, especially in the playoffs."

What he meant: I'm not waiting on Pau.

Nor should he. More than anyone, this loss falls on the shoulders of Pau Gasol. With the Hornets having lost forward David West, their second-best player, to a season-ending knee injury, the Lakers walked into this series with a huge size advantage. Emeka Okafor didn't stay on the floor long enough to make an impact because of foul trouble, further limiting New Orleans' interior presence to 6-foot-9 forward Carl Landry, Gray and Jason Smith, a jump-shooting 7-footer. The Lakers' three-man rotation at the two big positions – Gasol, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum – spans nearly 21 feet and $40 million.

And through a combination of Paul's penetrating drives and L.A.'s defensive indifference, the Hornets outscored the Lakers 52-34 in the paint. Gasol took just nine shots to Bryant's 26, making only two. He didn't fight for position under the basket. He didn't demand the ball. He didn't grab a single offensive rebound. He floated."