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"Our offense is a read-based offense -- it's up to our point guards to get the ball in different spots,'' Brown was saying Wednesday following the Lakers' 96-91 over the champion Mavericks. "There's no way, without a training camp, after the first week of the season that I could sit back and say, 'Guys, go figure it out.' Because they don't know it.

"Not only do they not know it,'' he admitted of his opening weeks in charge of the Lakers, "I'm not sure, based on the personnel, if this is the right stuff for us.

"I keep the play cards and I make one up almost every game. My play card from the first two weeks of the season is completely different from what it is now. It's funny, because all this stuff came out recently.''

"What people fail to understand is Steve Blake was out for a month and a half. [Lakers rookie] Andrew Goudeluck had never played the point guard in his life. How am I supposed to sit back and let this kid try to run a team when he's never played point guard, and now he's playing in the NBA as a backup point guard? It ain't happening.

"Let's make sure we try to ignore as much noise as possible. I'm not going to react to a ton of it because I do feel good about our process and what we're doing. Let's stay the course and let it work itself out, and by the end of the season, I think we'll be where we need to be going into the playoffs.''

"The reality of it -- and this is not a knock on our players at all -- if you got Chris Paul, you say, 'Chris Paul, go get us a good shot.' Play pick-and-roll and Chris Paul is going to set you up. You got Tony Parker? Go get us a good shot. (Russell) Westbrook, go get something.

"We are an execution team,'' continued Brown. "It's not a knock on Steve Blake, it's not a knock on Derek Fisher. They're not breaking it down and playing pick-and-roll, so what we have to do is we have to be an execution team. What does that mean?''

He held up the play sheet.

"We have to get the ball up the floor so we can get to not only our first or second option, but sometimes we've got to get to our third and fourth option because we don't have the break-down guys. Metta (World Peace) is not going to face you up and break you down. Drew (Bynum) is not, Pau is not -- they're post-up guys. So we have to execute by getting the ball up the floor quickly, not necessarily for a shot, but to get to a third or fourth option we have to space the floor very well, OK? And then the last thing is we have to make sure we're moving the ball and moving bodies. We get multiple ball reversals and the way we drive and kick is by throwing the ball into Kobe, throw the ball into Pau, throw the ball into Bynum and now against the double-team they kick it out. But our spacing and all that has to be good.

"That's how we can get an advantage. It's the way we're built.''

"I'll say this until I leave the game,'' Brown went on. ""You can take your defense from team to team to team, because defense is about will and want and effort and mental toughness. You could play defense in this league if you decided; I could.''

"But you can't take your offense with you,'' Brown said. "I had LeBron James in Cleveland. How's LeBron playing in Miami, what's he doing? He's got the ball at the top of the frickin' floor and he's playing pick-and-roll. When I was in Cleveland, people were saying you've got to post him -- it's not who he is, he's not a postup every-play guy. He wants the ball at the top of the floor, he needs it. He needs to be a point forward, and you need to play multiple pick and rolls with him. That's what he did in Cleveland.

"Here, we don't have that. We can't play middle pick-and-roll because we don't have a middle pick-and-roll guy. So what we have to do is what we're doing now. First big down on the rim-run, try to get deep post-up, let's get the ball into the post, space the floor, get it from one side of the floor to the other. Every once in a while, bring Kobe off a pindown. Every once in a while, post Kobe up. Every once in a while, play pick-and-roll, but try to do it from side-to-side after we move the defense

"It's as simple as that. You can't take your offense from team to team to team. You've got to build your offense around your personnel.''

Sedale Threatt wrote:Interesting stuff. Nobody can ever accuse Mike Brown of being stupid.

One thing that jumped out immediately to me, though:

So we have to execute by getting the ball up the floor quickly, not necessarily for a shot, but to get to a third or fourth option we have to space the floor very well, OK? And then the last thing is we have to make sure we're moving the ball and moving bodies.

Sounds good. So why is it, on so many possessions, that we're not even starting our offense until there's nine or 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

I recognize the injury to Blake and the lack of prep time in training camp, but still. If this is the plan, it doesn't look like we follow it very often.

So Gutta wrote:The Defense looks really good.

I don't blame Mike Brown for the poor offense as much as I do the fact that we have the worst PG and worst SF in the NBA.