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For the first time since the beginning of the season the lakers have held the opposing team under 100 points 8 times in a row. They started the season w 7 in a row. Is our defense returing to form??

It was never in form for it to return..

Yes the defense of our starting line up seems much better with Ariza in the starting lineup..

More emphasis on funneling gaurds to the help.. the scheme has succeeded against our likely playoff opponents except may be Portland..

Hope we dont run into Portland..

still hasnt stopped the bench mob from stuffing up leads

so while the bench's defense has also improved, their offense has gone down the drain

walton has helped to some degree, but the fault is squarely on farmar and sasha

Sasha and Jordan play much better with the starting unit.. So the problem lies in the composition...

At the beginning of the year our bench included Odom and Ariza.. both have moved to the starting lineup.. Cant expect 2 jump shooters to take up slack ..

We need to surround these guys with starter to make them effective..

Yes both Farmar and Sashas defence has improved in that they are not giving up as many hand checking fouls..

Akiho wrote:still hasnt stopped the bench mob from stuffing up leads

so while the bench's defense has also improved, their offense has gone down the drain

walton has helped to some degree, but the fault is squarely on farmar and sasha

maybe phil begins to tighten his rotation so much so, that those guys are always with 2/3 starters on the floor

wackokid05 wrote:For the first time since the beginning of the season the lakers have held the opposing team under 100 points 8 times in a row. They started the season w 7 in a row. Is our defense returing to form??

pace might have something to do with it. There's no way to prove that winning a game 99-90 means better defense than winning a game 120-105. Well actually there is a way, but who the hell wants to bother with an 8-game drtg

This team isn't exactly playing against fast teams or teams with high offense efficiency, I mean, holding teams like the Nets, a Pistons without three starters, and the Clippers under 100 doesn't say anything about the defense.

I don't think it's our defense that has been improving.. It's the opposing team having low percentage shots and turnovers. The last several games i've seen... we're not doing that well on our D but instead the opposing team just can't make a shot...

Our bench mob needs to focus more... they're losing it out there. Sometimes i see them playing for themselves rather than each other. The most improved i've seen has been Luke. I've been seeing some amazing moves lately. hehe

I'm actually glad that Luke is now on the bench, because he's a very solid playmaker. So he can dish it up nicely. But ask him to create for himself, and he fumbles the ball..

i knew it would come around

The more telling statistic is probably opponent FG%. Only once have we allowed a team to shoot over 50% during this stretch of games (Bobcats -- go figure), and we've held opponents under 43% 5 times. Of course, we've played some pretty bad teams during this stretch, but there has been a definite improvement.

Another thing I'm noticing is that we're slowing down the pace a little bit. I'd have to look at FGAs and things of that nature to see if this is actually the case, but it sure seems like we're playing at a lower tempo. Which is fine with me. Although our offense hasn't been firing on all cylinders lately, I like our chances of producing in the halfcourt a hell of a lot better than most of our opponents.

I think the slow down in tempo is done on purpose to reduce the number of turnover especially with the bench unit..

Sedale Threatt wrote:Another thing I'm noticing is that we're slowing down the pace a little bit. I'd have to look at FGAs and things of that nature to see if this is actually the case, but it sure seems like we're playing at a lower tempo. Which is fine with me. Although our offense hasn't been firing on all cylinders lately, I like our chances of producing in the halfcourt a hell of a lot better than most of our opponents.

Once the playoffs come around the play seems to be slower so tranistion buckets are evenmore vluable and rare to come by. Pace seems to be one reason why the lakeshow have ben scoring the the 80's and giving up no mre then the 90 some pts during the past week(s). One thing that I saw was that teams would realy shoot alot of 3's against the lakers was it because of 2 7 footers in the lane or was the perimeter defense lackadasical?

the basic, basic, basic fundamentals of any defense is crashing the boards. rebounding. sure there are other factors, but rebounding is one key area. and that will not seriously improve until bynum returns. there are teams where you can see it, a team shoots once, and thats it. that ball belongs to the opposite team. many a time you can see teams grabbing boards on us with our guys looking around. well that wont change much unless we get the other 7footer out there to battle in that area.

Lakeshow2417 wrote:Once the playoffs come around the play seems to be slower so tranistion buckets are evenmore vluable and rare to come by. Pace seems to be one reason why the lakeshow have ben scoring the the 80's and giving up no mre then the 90 some pts during the past week(s). One thing that I saw was that teams would realy shoot alot of 3's against the lakers was it because of 2 7 footers in the lane or was the perimeter defense lackadasical?

that was more because they were overzealous in doubling in the lane and slow to rotate out to open guys

One thing to note though is that while the defense may not have improved, they are doing better than last year at playing the game with a slower pace. Last year they could play half court as well, but they tend to struggle against strong defensive teams as evidenced by the two games where the Spurs had a 16 and 19 point lead at one point. Hopefully the bench's struggle to score is a blessing in disguise.

Our defense has been better but our offense has been stuttering, more sloppy than usual and guys are missing shots.

However, i'd rather be going into the playoffs with a high level of defense and stuttering offense than vice versa. Offense will come and go but when you can stop teams, you win. Boston won the title last year with a consistent defensive effort and their O came when it needed to. I'd like to see that kind of situation with us rather than relying on our offense to win games.