What can the Lakers do to fix their defensive problems.

[GeneralNash]

Look at the teams competing...memphis, pacers and miami...all these teams are good defensively. You need good defense to get far.

[dockingsched]

they need to get faster.

[DEEP3CL]

Being able to stop penetration would be a nice start. Our guards get roasted like peanuts nightly.

[Jajwanda]

Switch Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol on defense. Get rid of as many slow perimeter players as possible.

[dockingsched]

Switch Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol on defense. Get rid of as many slow perimeter players as possible.

ideally i would want pau and dwight to play together as little as possible, similar to how phil played odom/pau and odom/bynum for at least 2/3's of the game.

would love to get earl clark back to fill the LO role, but we'll see if they can afford him. if not him, MWP playing the 4 would be nice if he doesn't get amnestied. MWP is too slow for SF now. he can defend his man decently enough, but he's too slow from a team d / help d POV.

realistically, both will probably be gone so hopefully jordan hill keeps developing that mid range and is able to give dwight the space he needs.


on the perimeter i want to see kobe playing a lot more SF when he gets back. last yr, of the lakers top 20 most played 5 man units, the best defensive lineup was nash/meeks/kobe/mwp/d12. could easily sub in blake for nash and not miss a beat, but the thing i take most from that is that kobe at SF and a quicker PF like MWP creates the help type of defense that this team can succeed with.

[Jajwanda]

What I take from that is that, the most important thing to defense is that your foot speed matches up at each position, the big men have to have the ability to hedge, shot-blocking must be there, floor spacing to prevent TOs, and you have to have plus rebounding.

Gasol-Howard can't do that unless they play against huge teams.

Don't worry about Clark he'll be back.

[MAMBAEMD]

They need to emphasize the post on offense more than the 3 point shot, since long shots lead to long rebounds and run-outs.
They were terrible at transition defense. They were half decent at half-court D.

[stunnar0b]

our defense starts with our offense so with that said if our perimeter players (not naming anyone in particular) are jacking up shots then it becomes a perimeter shootout. and we all know we're horrid with our perimeter defense so come next year if we're fortunate to keep howard we have to make a concerted effort and play through howard. i dont give a crap if the stats say howard got the most touches, the ball has to start inside out every time.

[ArC_man]

We need to change defensive philosophies when defending the PnR. We should be forcing the ball handler towards the baseline away from the pick instead of the ridiculous Mike Brown "hedge and recover" stuff that our big men are too slow to perform.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqaqwHLY8v4[/youtube]

Also we need to get away from the "shoot the first open 3" garbage that Mike D emphasizes.

[Pablo Escobar]

1. Get a new coach
2. Get a new pg and sf
3. Get a pf with a set and we're set.

[tkb]

Prioritize defensive practices more would be a good place to start..

We also could use a bit more quickness in our lineup, especially in the back court/wing positions.

[salmahayek]

Play more zone with Nash in the game...especially if Howard and Gasol are both back.

I would give Devin Ebanks a qualifying offer and see what happens. He has flashed good defense against Kevin Durant and he can run the floor.

The Lakers are hoping MWP opts out and they bring him back on a much cheaper deal. If not, I think he'll be amnestied for luxury tax savings. MWP has essentially become a poor man's Robert Horry, in that he is really only a playoff player now, where when things slow down in the post season, he is good to have on your team for the intimidation factor and/or the "don't mess with us because we have MWP."

I'd be fine with Ebanks, Clark, and Kobe sharing the three next year.

If MWP would opt out, then we likely amnesty Blake for some savings. I think we really need a veteran combo guard that can back up Nash and play some two, especially if Kobe isn't available to start the season.

[Kilroy]

Communicate... We play defense like 5 guys on islands out there. Time to get on the same page and start trusting one another.

[Slava]

I think a full training camp can do wonders for this team. There were occasions where Dwight was expecting the defender to funnel his man into him and the communication simply wasn't there. If we get Dwight back, tweak the starting line ups and bench a bit, we can atleast be an average NBA defense. Its upto our offense to carry us forward after that.

[tugs]

it's on the players for me. you can't teach effort.

[madmaxmedia]

it's on the players for me. you can't teach effort.

We don't have fundamentally good perimeter defenders on this team right now. Of course, less than maximum effort will only make it worse.

[LApwnd]

need to replace at least 2 of the starters, all 3 perimiter players sucks balls on D and that include Kobe. Since we're stuck with Nash and Kobe, the 2 is obvious in Pau/MWP. Having youger SMARTER players at those 2 position could be of great help. Marc is not much faster then Pau but it seems like he's a lot smarter in his cut off of guards then Pau and even then he wasn't able to overcome Zbo slow arse in the Spurs series cause I still saw Parker get to where ever he wanted. Indy is a good example of 2 slow bigs in starting lineup but having the younger/faster perimiter players made up for that and their rotation scheme is alot better than ours.

[One Love]

We need Speed, Speed and Speed...

[The Skyhook]

Swap Gasol with KG and have him bark out defensive orders when hes on the court

[Dr Aki]

fire dantoni
hire pop