The same New Orleans Hornets that LA vanquished twice earlier this season with minimal resistance showed they may be a threat after all. They rallied from a seven-point third-quarter deficit Tuesday night behind the brilliance of stars Chris Paul and David West, joining lowly Sacramento as the only Western Conference teams to beat the Lakers with a 116-105 victory.

"We match up against them well, but we didn't play our best game," Lakers forward Pau Gasol said. "I hate losing, but especially at home to a conference rival."

If recent blowout victories over Western Conference playoff hopefuls Utah and Portland accentuated the Lakers' strengths, Tuesday night's fourth quarter revealed their vulnerabilities. New Orleans (21-10) reeled off a game-changing 15-0 run to take a 109-99 lead, taking advantage of a porous Lakers defense and an offense that could not find a secondary scorer to step up once Kobe Bryant ran out of miracles.

Making matters worse for the Lakers, they may have another player joining Luke Walton and Jordan Farmar on the inactive list. Lamar Odom will undergo an MRI on his right knee today after hyper-extending it in a second-quarter collision with Hornets guard Chris Paul, limping directly to the locker room and remaining there the rest of the game.

"This is what you have to do now," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said. "You keep playing, even when they come fast and furious now."

It's a testament to the artistry and aggressiveness of Paul that the Hornets got off to a far better start than they did in either of their blowout home losses to the Lakers. The speedy New Orleans point guard repeatedly scorched whichever defender the Lakers assigned to him off a series of top-of-the-key screen-and-rolls, posting 23 of his 32 points and seven of his 15 assists before the break.

Bryant rallied the Lakers from a five-point halftime deficit, catching fire in the third quarter the way few players can. He scored 20 of his 39 points on 8-for-9 shooting in the quarter, at one point scoring all but nine of the Lakers' points during a 25-10 run that turned an eight-point deficit into a short-lived seven-point lead.

The Hornets held Bryant to two fourth-quarter points and dared someone else to beat them, but nobody could answer the call. Gasol had just 10 points, Andrew Bynum managed seven, and newly minted starter Vladimir Radmanovic missed six of his seven shots.

It was West who led the Hornets' charge in the fourth quarter. He scored 15 of his game-high 40 points in the fourth quarter, adjusting to the size of Gasol by starting his forays to the basket farther away from the rim.

"It's just two all-stars playing out of their mind," Bryant said. "It's tough to weather a game like that."