Before we crown the Lakers world champs for the 2008-09 season, let's taper down the myopia and look at this team from an unbiased viewpoint. The Detroit Pistons sent the Lakers back to reality after easily winning at Staples Center on Friday, Nov. 14. I discovered three things from that game.
First, I discovered that the Lakers are far from a great defensive team. They are doing better on the defensive end this year, but I don't consider them a lock-down team like the Pistons, Spurs, Celtics or even the Cavaliers. Time after time, the Pistons got wide-open looks and the Lakers were too slow getting to the shooters. The Lakers' greatest strength is their length, but if teams spread the court, like the Pistons did, you can expose some of the Lakers' weaker one-on-one defenders like Derek Fisher, Sasha Vujacic, Vladimir Radmanovic, Pau Gasol and Jordan Farmar, who are all good defending in space but struggle at times keeping guys out of the lane.
Second, the Detroit Pistons just has the Lakers' number. For some reason, whether it's Isiah Thomas, Chauncey Billups or Allen Iverson running the point, the Pistons know how to the beat the Lakers. Other than the 1988 victory in the NBA Finals, seems like the Pistons have gotten the best of this matchup. The Pistons swept the Lakers in the 1989 Finals, they won 4-1 in the 2004 Finals and have taken eight of the last 10 regular-season games from the Lakers. The Pistons seem to have the upperhand in the one-on-one matchups as well. Iverson clearly is better than Fisher or Farmar...Tayshaun Prince is better than any of the Lakers' small forwards and is one of the few players in the league who can bother Kobe Bryant...Rasheed Wallace is better than Gasol and the Pistons are close to unbeatable when he's hitting 3-pointers...and Kwame Brown (yes, the same Kwame Brown the Lakers couldn't wait to get rid of) can guard Andrew Bynum by himself. That last matchup is somewhat disturbing because Bynum should dominate Brown on paper. However, you can't overlook the fact that Brown is a very good post defender and at 6-11, 285 pounds, he's very hard to move. Brown probably played extra hard Friday night because he wanted to show the Lakers he can still play. And when Coach Phil Jackson pops in the DVD from the game, he'll notice that Brown was a force in the middle on defense and was very active on offense, two things he couldn't consistently do when he was in L.A. The Lakers better hope the Pistons don't reach the NBA Finals because the Motor City bad boys has the players and the sytem to defeat them.
Third, the Lakers have to get over the mental block of playing against physical teams. It happened in the 2008 NBA Finals when the Celtics disrupted the triangle offense by putting their hands on the Lakers. The Celtics, Cavaliers and Pistons all play physical defense and all three teams are well-schooled in the art of pushing and shoving. When that happens, the Lakers need to toughen up and push back. This is the Lakers' greatest deficiency. They are not a tough team. They play with a certain arrogance when they are ahead, but once the other team gets rough, they all tend to fold their tents. Schematically, there is nothing Coach Jackson can do to fix this. This is all mental. This is the last road block this team must overcome to win a championship.
I love the Lakers. I have lived and died with this team since I started following basketball in the 1980s. Through the first seven games of this season, the Lakers machine was off to one of the best starts in NBA history and posted impressive victories over Houston at home and New Orleans on the road. But the loss to Detroit should remind us all that it is still a long season and the Lakers are still a work in progress.
