LOS ANGELES – For two days, the Los Angeles Lakers went over their game plan. Phil Jackson put the Lakers through a lengthy play-and-pause video session, forcing them to watch and re-watch their mistakes from their opening loss of the postseason. They emerged vowing to play more aggressive and focused. If they were going to square their series with Chris Paul(notes) and these New Orleans Hornets, they'd have to do it with defense.

It sounded good, too, at least until the Lakers took the floor for Game 2. Then they watched Carl Landry(notes) quickly free himself for an open jump shot. Paul followed by dribbling into the lane and throwing in a floater. Marco Belinelli(notes) pulled up for another short shot.

"I was getting annoyed," Andrew Bynum(notes) said, and this was the first clear sign of progress.

LOS ANGELES – Kobe Bryant(notes) stared at his questioner and nodded. Concerned? Yes, he’s concerned. He’d just watched Chris Paul(notes) 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(notes), 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

LOS ANGELES – Andrew Bynum(notes) squeezed his right knee, bowed his head, and for the first time in their star-crossed season, the Los Angeles Lakers had a real reason to worry. They can live with a five-game losing streak, with their backup point guard calling in sick with chickenpox, with another important reserve tweaking his own right knee. They've learned to weather the occasional game where Kobe Bryant(notes) shoots too much or Ron Artest(notes) thinks too little. They can even stomach another two months of "Khloe & Lamar" episodes.

But these Lakers can't win a third straight championship without their young 7-foot center, which is why the sight of Bynum sitting on the court Tuesday night, grimacing in pain, too weak to stand after his knee had buckled, sent a shiver through the NBA's reigning champs.

"He allows us to be the dominant team we're capable of being," Derek Fisher(notes) said some two hours later in the Lakers' subdued locker room. "So it's hard to think of not

LOS ANGELES – From Kevin Durant(notes) to coach Scott Brooks to general manager Sam Presti, the Oklahoma City Thunder all had one request of Kendrick Perkins(notes): Be yourself. They'd plucked him off the Boston Celtics' roster in the middle of another championship chase, separated him from the only NBA team he'd ever known. And in those first few days when Perkins wasn't sure what to make of everything, the Thunder gave him the best assurance they could.

We don't want you for what you can become, they said. We want you for what you already are: big and bold, tough as granite, edges rough and sharp.

And so when someone stuck a recorder in front of Perk a few weeks ago and asked what he thought of the Los Angeles Lakers, he answered not as the Thunder would, but as only a born-and-bred Celtic could. The Lakers are "yesterday's news," he said. Phil Jackson's arrogant. Pau Gasol's(notes) soft.

"That was my opinion from the past battles that we had in the playoffs," Perkins said. "It

LOS ANGELES – There would be no scowl from Kobe Bryant(notes) on this night, only a grin. Wrapped in a black terrycloth robe, his feet soaking in an ice bucket in front of his locker, Bryant wore the look of a proud patriarch. His Los Angeles Lakers had bullied the Dallas Mavericks, and when the Mavs finally came unhinged, resorting to the type of cheap, needless fouls that define a lesser team, the Lakers shoved back.

By the end of the Lakers' 110-82 victory, Bryant had watched three of his teammates ejected for retaliating – none of them, surprisingly, named Ron Artest(notes). Each had exited the court to a thunderous roar from the Staples Center crowd and a knowing nod from the Lakers' leader. In Bryant's world, this is all that mattered: The Lakers had stood tough and united.

These aren't the Lakers of last year or two years ago, and they certainly aren't the same skittish group who cowered at the sight of the Boston Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals.

"We have different players now,"

LOS ANGELES – The San Antonio Spurs finally unwrapped Antonio McDyess(notes) from their celebratory embrace long enough to skip off the court. Pau Gasol(notes) hunched over the Los Angeles Lakers' bench for a moment as if he were going to be sick, leaving his teammates to begin their slow shuffle to the locker room. Phil Jackson hadn't even bothered to wait for the referees to replay the final, painful tenth of a second. Who wants to watch another dagger to the gut?

Only Derek Fisher(notes) stayed on the floor, glaring at the refs, twirling his finger above his head. He wanted McDyess' winning tip-in erased, except anyone who had seen the shot knew the obvious: This wasn't goaltending, just another scar on the Lakers' season. The Staples Center emptied some more, and still Fisher stood, twirling his finger. For a rare moment, the champs looked desperate.

The Lakers will board their chartered jet Friday, bound for New Orleans and the start of a seven-game trip that promises to test

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Kobe Bryant(notes) pouted and cursed. He picked up a string of technicals, even wasting an ejection in one of these embarrassments just to make his bleeping point. He froze out reporters for a few days, then celebrated Christmas by calling out his teammates after LeBron James(notes) had run over them. These Los Angeles Lakers were too complacent, he said. They didn’t work hard enough. He vowed to kick them in practice. Toughen them until they’d awoken from their winter slumber.

After the Lakers’ malaise had stretched some 1,200 miles to the southeast and into a third game, Bryant found a new target for his ire. The San Antonio Spurs had flattened the champs, just like the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat had before them, and on this night Bryant pointed blame where blame was most deserved.

At himself.

“I couldn’t put the ball in the basket and it snowballed from there,” Bryant said in front of his locker late Tuesday. “It’s my responsibility to make them.”

Some of

Tim Duncan(notes) smiles as he surveys the shifting NBA landscape. "New age," he says, and if it sounds like he isn't quite sure where he stands after all this tectonic movement, that South Texas clay beneath his feet seems as stable as ever.

He'd spent the summer like everyone else, watching and wondering what it all meant. LeBron James(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) joined Dwyane Wade(notes) in Miami. Amar'e Stoudemire(notes) signed a $100 million contract with the Knicks. Carlos Boozer(notes) left Utah for Chicago. Chris Paul(notes) and Carmelo Anthony(notes) even toasted their dream union.

"To each their own," Duncan says, and he's still smiling.

"Sometimes you take an easier route. But the easier route isn't always guaranteed anything."

Duncan won't pass judgment, but perspective. There'd been a time when he, too, considered leaving the only NBA team he'd ever played for. He stayed, and the decision delivered three more titles. Continuity worked for him. Some 10 years later, it