DEFENSE

[chickhearnsmike]

what Defence???
lakers should have never hired mb as head coach. asstaint c MAYBE but not head

[LateRoundFlyer]

How can a team not give effort when they have a hall of fame PG in likely his last years desperately looking for a championship and another future HOFer at the peak of his prowess looking to prove himself?

I expected them to come out like Boston in 2008 but these guys are playing like they just returned from a repeat championship.

Let's not forget that 2011 team opened the season with a 8W streak. In fact, that team went in on to rattle off 2 more of them. We all know how that ended up.

Gasol and Howard are really not in game shape now. Offensively they are ok, but defensively they are getting killed.

Unless those two get better soon, we are going to be in deep trouble.

If Gasol not in game shape now, he is never gonna be in game shape. Dude just played in the Olympics, should be primed or gased out. He looks limp and soft out there at times.

I don't know what games you watched, but Gasol looked just fine out there against Dallas and Portland. He's averaging 46 FG% on 15 FGA, 4AST and 11REB a game. All this and he played the most minutes by far out of any Laker in our last 10 games (already on pace for 38mpg this year again!). If he played maybe 5 minutes less, he would no doubt look even more efficient.

I honestly want to know why it's okay to bash Brown for his awful rotations one second, then pretend like they're not a factor when it comes to Pau. We've been through this two years in a row now; they are.

[Michael Lucky]

well when you give up so many TOs you're going to give up a lot of points. Limit TOs and the D won't look as terrible.

[lakergang90]

Mike Brown = Coach of the Year

[DrewBynum77]

our biggest defensive flaw so far is Gasol showing hard off the PnRs and this is on Mike Brown. Gasol is too slow/lazy to do that.

[LAFan24]

It's simple, we need a mixture of old/young in our starting lineup. Kobe can't be playing D all game and still manage to be effective on the offense. Plus Nash as we all know, isn't very good at D. Howard will eventually become 100% and start cleaning up some of the teams defensive mistakes. I also think Pau needs learn how to defend the pick and roll better.

I think this lineup would give us a balance of youth and athleticism (for the days when our D sucks)

Nash
Kobe
Ebanks
Jordan Hill
Dwight