Sting us once, shame on you. Sting us twice, shame on us. That’s what it should say on the Laker white board before Game 5, because if this were a game of missed opportunities, the Lakers would have won, hands down. They had a nine-point lead in the first quarter, then squandered it with careless offense and absent defense (I’m talking to you over there, guarding Trevor Ariza who scored 16 first-half points, ahem, Kobe Bryant). The Hornets made runs to increase their leads throughout the game, and so did the Lakers to catch up. But with each chance to either take the game over, the road team failed to execute time and time again and it cost them another game to finish off this series. READ MORE…
