LOS ANGELES — Amazingly, one game into the first round of the Western Conference playoffs between the New Orleans Hornets and Los Angeles Lakers, no one has yet offered the time-worn maxim “a series doesn’t begin until someone wins a game on the road.”

Consider this series well under way.

If the Hornets didn’t have the Lakers’ attention coming into Sunday afternoon’s first game in Staples Center — Los Angeles Coach Phil Jackson trotted out his own time-worn excuse about his team’s inability to play well in early starts — New Orleans’ stunning 109-100 victory certainly opened the Lakers’ eyes.

Yet, the relative ease in which the prohibitive underdog Hornets handled the Lakers on their home court could open the door for complacency, especially for a team comprised of mostly postseason newcomers up and down the bench, including the man occupying the first chair, Coach Monty Williams.

But veteran guard Chris Paul’s competitive nature likely won’t allow for a letdown in Game 2 tonight.

“One game. One game,” Paul said of Sunday’s already-in-the-rear-view-mirror triumph. “We’ve been in the playoffs before, so we understand that that’s all it is.”

Paul, among others, is speaking in cautionary tones about the value of Sunday’s victory in the big picture, and what stealing another win here tonight might mean for the Hornets.

“It would mean a lot,” Paul said, “but we’re just gong to take it one day at a time right now and not get ahead of ourselves and understand that (tonight) is just as important as (Sunday) was.”

And Williams, who this season has dealt with frustrating droughts that followed a season-opening eight-game winning streak and a pre-All-Star break 10-game wining streak, said Tuesday he took immediate steps within his coaching staff and with the players to stem any degree of self-satisfaction that might have been blossoming after Sunday’s Game 1 win.

“We talked about it as soon as the game was over with,” Williams said Tuesday. “For us, winning Game 1 against a team like the Lakers is like getting a first down in football. The game is a long way from being over. We’ve got a lot more to do, and we didn’t dwell on it. As a staff, and as a unit, we’ve talked about the first quarter of Game 2, and that’s as far as we’re going to go with it. Internally, with the staff, that’s what I talked about. It’s only a first down for us. You’re playing against the champs, and you can’t take anything for granted.”

And his message to the players?

“One step,” said Williams. “You’ve done something you haven’t done all year long, which is beat the Lakers. But we’ve got to do what we did better, execute better, and understand that this situation only comes along once in a lifetime. You’ve got to relish it.”

Hornets forward Trevor Ariza, whose lock-down defense of former teammate Kobe Bryant on Sunday kept Bryant scoreless in the game’s last 6 1/2 minutes, said he knew exactly the mood at the Lakers’ El Segundo practice facility the past two days.

“They’re not rattled at all,” said Ariza, a member of Los Angeles’ championship team during the 2008-09 season. “They’re focused and gearing up to play against us on Wednesday. It’s going to be a different game, not the same. But I think everybody here is pretty much ready. They want to play. They want to contribute. We all just want to do our part to help our team win.”

There is, Ariza emphasized, no room for smugness.

“We don’t play this game just to win one game or keep it a series,” he said. “We play this game to move on to the next and try to win a championship.”

To that end, Williams has continued to hammer home the Hornets’ status as not just underdogs in this series, but the national perception that New Orleans has no business expecting any measure of success against a team that has won back-to-back NBA titles and defeated the Hornets four times in the regular season.

“We’ve had these great events throughout the season, with the streaks, and beating teams most people thought we’d get smashed by,” Williams said. “We’ve been in this situation before. Now, we haven’t done it against the Lakers.

“But we’re used to being in situations where people thought we’d get smacked. And we come out fighting. And we get a good result. I think we’ve learned from that, and I also believe that we won one game. The guys understand that. It’s a long series. We don’t have enough experience to know what we’ve done. So we’ve got to continue to do the things that have helped us have success this year.”

And if Hornets players need to hear it from a voice other than Williams, he said, all they need do is gauge the perceptions of others, Sunday’s Game 1 victory notwithstanding.

“It hasn’t changed for us,” Williams said. “Nobody has given us a chance all year long. So I’ve pushed that point all year. ‘You haven’t done anything. People still expect you to get smacked. They still expect a sweep from here.’ If you think otherwise, you’re in for a rude awakening.

“All you’ve got to do is turn on NBA TV, ESPN, XYZ, and everybody is talking about what’s going to be done to us. Nothing has changed in my book.”

Jimmy Smith can be reached at jsmith@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3814.

Los Angeles — If there was any critical component to the Hornets’ hopes of establishing a competitive presence in a first-round Western Conference playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers, it was New Orleans’ bench play.

“For sure,” Hornets Coach Monty Williams warned before the game, “our bench is going to have to be ready. Not just ready but willing to go out there and play like they play in practice.”

Consider these numbers: 16 of 22 from the field, seven of 12 from the free-throw line, 15 points from Jarrett Jack in his postseason debut, 12 from Aaron Gray on five of five shooting from the field, and a total of 39 bench points to the Lakers’ 21.

As much as anything, those numbers contributed to the Hornets’ stunning 109-100 upset of the two-time defending champions Sunday afternoon at Staples Center, but perhaps not without a price.

Gray badly turned his right ankle with 1:07 remaining. And the walking boot Gray was wearing, and the crutches that carried him from the dressing room onto the back of a flat-bed cart for the short ride across the street to the team hotel, indicated Gray will need every bit of the time between now and Wednesday night’s Game 2 tip off to rehabilitate.

“We just really had the mindset that we were playing against some big boys: Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol, obviously a versatile big in Lamar Odom coming off the bench,” Gray said. “Especially me in my situation, it’s just kind of anticipating when Coach Williams is going to using me. I just wanted to make sure I was as ready as possible.

“My teammates did a great job putting me in good positions. … (The bench) has been locking in all season. Coach has put a lot of pressure on us but given us the opportunity to go out and play freely. We were talking the whole first six, seven minuets how good the first team was doing. It got us an (eight)-point lead. We didn’t want to be the reason they came back or we let the team down.”

And the ankle?

“I’ve got a soft ball on the ankle right now,” Gray said. “We’ll do everything we can to get it ready to go on Wednesday.”

Jack admitted he had difficulty sleeping Saturday night, with the anticipation of his first postseason game the reason for his insomnia.

But his first attempt in the second quarter, from 19 feet, found the bottom of the net that gave the Hornets’ a 28-24 lead 20 seconds in and provided a sedative for his jumpy nerves.

“This was huge,” Jack said. “Coach preaches that we need everybody in this locker room to come in and play a pivotal part. That’s all we try to come in and do. We don’t try to come in and do anything spectacular or magical. We just try to stick to our game plan, play hard and keep sustaining the energy and effort that the starters put up.”

At the outset of the fourth quarter, the Lakers cut the lead to one, 75-74, after Bynum’s jumper. But Jack answered with a nine-foot floater, followed by a tear drop from Willie Green that bumped the lead to five — and Los Angeles never got closer than three points — twice — thereafter.

“I thought they were really effective, Jarrett and Willie, when they cut it to one,” Williams said. “We went on a (9-2) run, and everything was at the basket,” Williams said. “We’ve had Boston down, Chicago down at the half — and they’d come back on us because we just kept casting up jump shots. We talked about attacking and going to the basket. If we could go to the free-throw line, we could set our defense — and our bench was a big part of that.”

MORE GRAY: Williams said afterward the initial diagnosis was a mild sprain, with further evaluation being done later Sunday night and today.

The Hornets are scheduled to practice this afternoon at Southern California’s gym.

NO-KAFOR: The playoff debut of New Orleans’ Emeka Okafor was something to forget: 22 minutes, two rebounds, four points — and he fouled out.

“The win (eliminates) all that,” Okafor said, smiling.

EXPERIENCE DISPARITY: The Hornets came into Sunday’s game the least experienced team in the NBA postseason, with a collective total of 144 playoff games played to the Lakers’ 959, the most of any of the 16 teams.

The Lakers’ Derek Fisher (199) and Kobe Bryant (198) each had played more postseason games than the entire Hornets’ roster, but you couldn’t tell that by the way New Orleans played.

“I’m not shocked, but I am pleasantly surprised,” Williams said. “I’m not going to disrespect our team and say I’m shocked.”

SURPRISE, SURPRISE: The Hornets out-scored the taller Lakers by an eye-popping margin of 52-34.

“They’re staying in the lane,” Los Angeles Coach Phil Jackson said. “They’re crowding the lane, staying back. They had Gray outplaying our big guys today.”

Said Williams: “Maybe they (Lakers) had an off night; maybe those guys didn’t have the same whatever it is they have, but I thought we were quick and kept attacking the basket. We talked about not being afraid to go in there and not worry about your mistakes.”

New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams admits playing the two-time defending champions Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs is not going to be easy.

However, Williams said they’re not running from anyone.

The Lakers are favored and they swept the regular-season series against the Hornets 4-0, winning by an average of 10.8 points.

Game 1 is Sunday at the Staples Center.

“We’ve got to attack right from the jump; it start on the defensive end for us,’’ Williams said. “We’ve got to be ready to throw our own upper cuts and left hooks. Whatever we need to win a game.

“Nobody expected anything from this team. That’s why when we won two or three games in a row everybody is surprised. We’re used to it. Nobody expected us to be here.’’

The Hornets closed out the regular season losing three-straight and struggled to defend and play with the effort that allowed them to win 46 games.

“It don’t matter what we looked like or what we are now,’’ guard Chris Paul said. “We’ve got to go out compete and play the game.”

 

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The New Orleans Hornets showed up to face the Houston Rockets at the New Orleans Arena on Wednesday with a 44-33 record, one victory shy of clinching a spot in the NBA playoffs.

Playoffs.

You kept hearing the word.

It’s a word the haves and have-nots of professional basketball begin dreaming of, in different ways, once the round ball was tossed up six months ago to launch an 82-game season.

If you were a fan of the Spurs, Lakers or Mavericks on one side of NBA map, or, if you happened to root for the Celtics, Bulls or Heat on the other side, “playoffs’’ posed only one question to their faithful followers: How high will we be seeded?

For the have-nots, on the other hand, “playoffs’’ came down to living in a world of “hope springs eternal,’’ a world Hornets fans quickly embraced no sooner had Monty Williams’ ball club rushed out of the starting gate 11-1.

For a rookie head coach, it marked the beginning of living life on the edge, watching a team given next to no chance of making it into the postseason suddenly become a surprising candidate to do so.

This was a team not only with many new faces, but also with its ownership up for grabs, with the commissioner lending a helping hand, with its future open to question.

Ask Monty Williams how he’ll remember his first year as head coach, and you listen to someone also speaking for his boss, General Manager Dell Demps.

“One year seems more like three or four,’’ said Williams with an impish grin.

Sure, he took over a job determined to do things the way he learned to do them on the way up.

But, but there were times when NBA life brought a head coach one surprise after another.

“Sometimes you wind up trusting your instincts,’’ he was saying before Wednesday’s tip-off. “And sometimes you listen to what your players are telling you. There are always surprises out there.’’

Williams was pleasantly surprised the night his Hornets beat the Mavericks in perhaps their finest performance and biggest surprise win of the season, considering a concussion sidelined Chris Paul and Trevor Ariza went 0-for-10 shooting from the field. The Hornets did it with 36 points from the bench (21 by Marco Bellinelli), with Jarrett Jack converting a three-shot personal foul, with a Hall of Fame defensive play by Emeka Okafor against Dirk Nowitzki on the final shot of the game.

And Williams remembered agonizing a few days later when his bench was outscored, 39-6, by Boston in a four-point loss to the Celtics.

Later on Wednesday, Williams had a hard time reining in his inside glow.

In his typical way of deflecting credit, he was happy to talk about what he felt was the turning point in a 101-93 victory that sewed up a spot, anywhere from a sixth to eighth seed, in the postseason.

“It was the break between the first and second quarter,’’ said Williams. “I didn’t have to tell the players a thing about what we let happen (a horrible 18-4 deficit in the first five minutes). They were already talking with one another. I didn’t call a timeout because we had been in games like this before, when a team kept hitting threes. They were coming off back-to-back games and I told myself, if they’re gonna shoot like that the whole game, we’re gonna lose anyway. Our guys decided enough was enough. Once we got a few stops, we got out and ran. We gave up a 38-point quarter, that’s not us. Then it was 17, 16, 22 the rest of the game. That’s who we are.’’

In a playoff-clinching win, it was defense (13 steals, 17 forced turnovers, two blocked shots, one critical in the fourth quarter by Okafor) and it was the job Jarrett Jack did on Kevin Martin and the job Ariza did on anyone in his area.

“Jarrett came in and gave us a big lift guarding Martin,’’ said Williams. “Trevor was phenomenal. This is the first time I think Trevor knuckled up and got Martin. Trevor didn’t make it physical for him the first time, especially in the second half. Not this time. Trevor didn’t go for any of his pump fakes. Trevor was more than adequate.’’

So was Paul, who finished with 28 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds.

“Chris almost comes up with a triple-double, and he had 45 cc’s drained off his knee yesterday,’’ Williams said Wednesday. “For him to play at a high level like he did, they just don’t make them like that. Most guys would take a game off. Not Chris. He’s a monster.’’

What a first half it was.

It said a lot for a team that missed five layups, while the Rockets were hitting eight of their first 11 shots.

Could it get any worse?

Well, it could.

By the end of the opening period, it wasn’t that the Rockets were up by 17, it was more a matter of watching a team that had remained competitive all season with a run of defensive stops were watching the enemy hit 50 percent from the floor, going 8-for-16 shooting threes.

As it happened, the Hornets surge came just as suddenly as the Rockets’ opening salvo.

It came with a 14-2 run in the final five minutes of the half highlighted by 3-pointers by Ariza and Paul followed by a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Jack that pulled the Hornets within four and pulled the fans out of their seats.

Yes, the Hornets were back in the game and, with Paul, Ariza and Jack still blazing in a 27-22 final period, Monty Williams’ bunch was on the way into a new season.

Who would have guessed it?

“Thank the head coach,’’ said Ariza.

And what did Monty Williams have to offer?

“Thank D-West,’’ he said. “No way we could have done it without him.’’

Peter Finney can be reached at pfinney@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3802.