After nearly six months of hearing, “we’ll be fine when the playoffs come around,” and “our regular season performance won’t determine how we play in the postseason,” judgement day had finally arrived for the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday afternoon. After nearly suffering a catastrophic breakdown to end the season, which almost sent the Lakers slipping to the fourth seed in the Western Conference, they managed to squeak out of their final games in second place.
With the Lakers sporting the worst record (30-10) against sub-.500 teams among the league’s top eight ball clubs, few would argue against the usage of words such as “complacent” and “content” to describe the Lakers’ 2010-11 regular season. 
Unsurprisingly, the Lakers’ tactics didn’t disappear with the regular season as they likely hoped.
They came out flat, lazy and sloppy. And after watching 82 games of the Lakers playing with that mentality, it wasn’t shocking to see their false sense of security kick them in the ass during one of their most awaited games of 2011.
It has nothing to do with the New Orleans Hornets winning or Chris Paul going off for 33 points, 14 assists and seven rebounds. Rather, it all falls down on the Lakers, their players and their mentalities coming into the series. The Lakers – who are supposed to be the two-time defending champions with three straight finals appearances – came to play regular season basketball, while the Hornets – who lack any sort of depth or notable postseason experience – had their playoff game faces on from the opening tip. And while the Lakers might be the better team, they certainly did not play as such on yesterday.
Not to berate the point, but game one was most certainly a result of who the Lakers were during the regular season. Although there are no stats to back it up, and no player will admit to it – they coasted during the regular season, and that was on display yesterday.
It may have worked last year, but the league is so much better than it was just a year ago. Teams are smarter, more experienced and they have slowly picked up on the Lakers’ game plans. This means that the Lakers cannot let up at all in the playoffs. The other 15 teams want a title just as badly – if not more so – than the Purple and Gold. Which is understandable, considering that only the Lakers have come out as winners the past two seasons.
Next: What’s the problem, doc?
So what went wrong yesterday?
Don’t start with Derek Fisher because CP3 had a monster game. Chris Paul is better than Derek Fisher, so get over it, now. Fisher is not a kid anymore, and as we’ve seen, he’s not the fastest player either. CP3 is going to blow by him quite a few times over the course of the series, and we’ll probably see the likes of Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest and Shannon Brown given the defensive assignment of covering the all-star point guard throughout the series. But just because we have Fisher as our starting point guard doesn’t mean they’ve already lost the series or the title.
No matter what you do – whether it’s sports, theater, music or anything that requires a final performance, how you practice and prepare is going to make or break you on the main stage. And in basketball, if you don’t practice and play your regular season games with the energy and intensity of a playoff game, it’s going to come back to haunt you when the postseason actually arrives. It’s how bad habits are formed, and yesterday, the Lakers’ offense and defense was ladened with them.
So, have the Lakers completely put the kibosh on their hopes for a third consecutive title? Not necessarily. Although their almost constant display of complacency will be a hard theme to shake, they have still exhibited their immense amount of talent and experience. They know how to win games, and it’s ultimately up to them whether or not they want this title.
I’m not going to fall back on my own personal regular season complacency and say that one game means nothing, because obviously it does carry some weight. However, this series is shaping up to be similar to the Lakers’ first round series last year, in which they were the number one seed, and didn’t offer a complete effort, extending the matchup to six games. This doesn’t completely mean that the Lakers are going to be okay, and they’ll finish off the Hornets handily (although, I fully expect them to do so).
I’m not worried about this specific circumstance affecting Bryant – he’s a natural born killer and he comes to play all of the time. But for guys such as Gasol, Bynum, Odom and the rest of the Killer B’s, they are going to have to mimic the mentality of Bryant. And if they do so for 16 games, they’ll come out on top of the world, just like everyone them expected to.