Lakers' Lack of Defense TKO'd in Phoenix

Last week, I wrote that I didn’t expect the Lakers to win the NBA title without Andrew Bynum to clog up the middle. In fact, I questioned whether or not they could win the Western Conference again this year.

Friday night, I chalked up their loss to Denver to jet lag. In hindsight, I was probably being too lenient.

The game today showed just how defenseless this Lakers team is when another team decides to get tough and pound away at the Lakers' middle.

While it was true that Lakers had the best record in the NBA going into today’s game, they sure didn’t play like it against a Suns team that was minus Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash.

It was like watching a speedy body puncher get inside his longer opponent and just relentlessly jack hammer away at the mid-section.

Again, just as they did Friday night in Denver and in most of their games since the All-Star break, the Lakers allowed their opponents basket after basket in the paint. The Lakers put up virtually no defense around the post.

Except for a brief stint at the start of the third quarter that saw the Lakers erase a ten-point halftime deficit and take the lead 75-70, the rest of the time involved Sun's passes into Shaquille O’Neal for a slam dunk or drives in the paint by Leon Barbosa, Matt Barnes and 38-year-old Grant Hill.

Neither Barbosa, Barnes, nor Hill ranked among the top offensive stars in the NBA or the Western Conference for that matter. Yet, they looked like All-Stars against the Lakers' hapless defense. Along with 36-year-old O’Neal, they forged out a 118-111 Suns victory.

O’Neal lead the Suns with 33 points and seven rebounds, while Barnes put up 26 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Barbosa also had 22 points and Hill had 17.

Despite 49 points from Kobe Bryant and 30 from Pau Gasol, the rest of the Lakers could only manage 32 points, shooting 44.7 percent as a team and allowing the Suns to make 55.8 percent of their shots.

Maybe I’m beginning to sound like one of those economic prognosticators who have been predicting doom and gloom now for months, but I said this day was coming, and I stand by my prediction. A team with a soft defense will not, and can not, win the NBA title. They will even find it difficult making it far in the Western Conference playoffs.

However, I must admit that a soft defense, as awful as it is, is still better than no defense at all, which is what the Lakers have displayed in their last two outings.

While they may be long in the paint, they are not broad enough nor tough enough. They need Bynum back in the worst way.

After all, their last two games prove that beyond any doubt.