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Guad play. Creation off the dribble. Blake, Fisher, Artest Brown and Barnes are good but they are not 'creators' off the dribble. Kobe is still very good, but not elite. We need somebody right now than can get to the hoop so our amazing big men can get easy buckets and even more offensive rebounds.

It's one extra look we can give the other team as the season progresses. We have probably the best offensive frontcourt since D-Rob and Tim DUncan in the late 90s, but defenses are adjusting and they'r not looking to crash hot when they are being swarmed. An elite penetrator does two things if he isn't scoring; he is drawing fouls and opening up lanes, manipulating defenses and on a good ball movement team like ours, getting wide open 3s and clearer lanes for big men.

Good win by the Lakers against the Nuggets today. When at home, the Nuggets are as good of a team as any. This is our biggest win so far this season. Lets turn it around.

I guess I'm the only person that believes that our offense is not the problem, but its the defense, if we even had half of our defensive effort that we did last year, we'd be the #1 seed in the west right now.

A defensive mentality.

We know Fisher cannot stay in front of guards no more. But we lack team defense. Pierce is 32 and was never really an above the rim type player. But he plays great team defense and he uses his body very well to stay in front of his men.

The Lakers just lack a defensive identity. They got the tools to do it and I do not understand why they are not a top defensive team.

Defense is a problem also. Transition, closing out, switching and GIVING UP STUPID FOULS are all big problems.

On a lighter note, Bynum looks AMAZING this year. On both sides of the floor, it was only a matter of time before he picked up passing habits of Pau and Lamar, but his defense is sublime when he isn't forced to switch on lightning quick guards. This guy might be the best centre in the league. D12's D is overrated.

Our defense was great today The Nugs kill everyone at home; we held them to 90 points (I'm not counting the 2-3 garbage buckets we gave up in the last minute) ... When our bigs do the small things like put keeping their arms up.. they are formidable to say the least. Our length is great.

Offense isn't and was never a problem for the Lakers. 48 minutes of defense is, however. They can play tight, solid D for 36 minutes and relax and let teams back into the game (Dallas for example). It's crazy though, the Lakers D has been one of the best in the past few years, but they don't apply it for the whole game at times.

Howard's D isn't overrated, I don't believe. He's not the greatest one-on-one defender, but as a help defender, he's one of the best, as he comes along the weakside. Bynum is coming into his own though.

Jay From LA wrote:I guess I'm the only person that believes that our offense is not the problem, but its the defense, if we even had half of our defensive effort that we did last year, we'd be the #1 seed in the west right now.

+1000 Ive been yelling about the defense for a while now.

Yeah the defense isn't good right now but I still believe we need dribble penetration.

Defense. This team gets lost on defense way too often. Being slow to get back on defense is part of the reason why we are lost on defense so often.

There is always areas a team can improve. Defense or offense. No team is going to trade a true PG that will make the Lakers better. We have nothing others want. LO for Chris Paul or some thing like that would never work. Just need to keep getting wins and hope for the best and get some injured players back to full health.

due to the lakers age they just cant play defense for the whole 24 seconds shot clock, sure they'll stop the first, second and maybe even the third action but because defense is all about effort they just dont play it though out the whole possession, and thats what mainly kills em. i just hope they dont make it a trend coming into the playoffs

Our D struggles against quick guards that operate with pick and roll and transition D. Those two things kill us. Both can be improved on by better communication on the D.

we just dont have the mentality that we had in the 08-09 run...those were the good ol days...we really sent a message from the beginning that season

even last season was a bit disppointing cause we didnt even make at least 60 wins

LA Forever wrote:Offense isn't and was never a problem for the Lakers. 48 minutes of defense is, however. They can play tight, solid D for 36 minutes and relax and let teams back into the game (Dallas for example). It's crazy though, the Lakers D has been one of the best in the past few years, but they don't apply it for the whole game at times.

Howard's D isn't overrated, I don't believe. He's not the greatest one-on-one defender, but as a help defender, he's one of the best, as he comes along the weakside. Bynum is coming into his own though.

Offense was a huge problem for us last year.

Community among the team. I believe that's where we are lacking.

Its defense...

Jay From LA wrote:I guess I'm the only person that believes that our offense is not the problem, but its the defense, if we even had half of our defensive effort that we did last year, we'd be the #1 seed in the west right now.

Naw Jay, count me in with you too. Offense is nowhere near the problem, anybody thinking it is......well I don't know what to say for them. Calling for creation off the dribble is the total antithesis of the Triangle. It's the exact reason we signed a guard like Blake in the first place, just need a steady ball handler with some decent IQ for the offense to function the way it was built to.

Our problem lies in the defensive principles we've installed this year, our rotations break down way too often and guys are covering or shading to spots they shouldn't. The way our team is built with two bigs clogging the paint, and two solid perimeter defenders you'd think we could easily shut teams down for consecutive possessions at will.

But the problem lies with our guards who far too often drift, allow penetration too easy and just a flat out disregard of their assignment. Yeah Kobe and Fish.........is who I speak of. Their play is what mainly is getting Drew and Pau into funky situations. Ron can usually cover his, but only into his D when it's a high profile scorer. So on nights when it's not he drifts to who the hell knows where, this is when you see him pick up the silly fouls.

But it has nothing to due with our offense, we're 7th in the league in scoring. Solution is simple, lock up on D......we win easy period.

^^^ post is on point Deep. Especially calling out Kobe and Fish. Fish simply has no lateral quickness, not to mention he is old. And Kobe just prefers to outscore the opposition instead of locking opposing guards down.

for this team to be known for it's defense, I think Kobe has to lead by example and start bearing down on D. Lead by example but I don't ever see that happening. Most nights we win by outscoring people and we won consecutive titles with this formula. We don't play D because we don't have to, it's as simple as that.

you know i'm gonna say it. It's not only just defense, specifically it's perimeter defense. We rely too much on our two 7-footers in the middle; we need to stop penetration further out from the basket. That means faster switches, and just fighting through screens. Take heed, Kobe/Fisher

Offense is a problem too, when they dont get good shots, the opposing team gets long rebs and runs on us leading to transition points, this team sucks at transition D too, nobody gets back or when they do get back they ALL pack the paint, which I suppose is a good idea but not everybody should go into the paint, leading to WIDE open 3's.