Lakers: Love them, loathe their defense

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Is it possible to love the Lakers but loathe the way they play defense?

I’m sorry, I can’t stop myself.

But that’s OK, for a team that wins as much as they do, they can’t stop anyone, either.

I mean, what’s with all the double-teaming?

The Lakers double-team everyone who gets the basketball. I mean, EVERYONE. Great shooters, good shooters, bad shooters, non-shooters. It doesn’t matter if it’s Tim Duncan or Sandra Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki or Dirk Diggler. If you have the ball, the Lakers will double-team you.

The Lakers double more than Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.

Now my son, who graduated from prestigious Claremont McKenna with a degree in math, explains to me quite patiently that if two people are guarding one person, by definition, this leaves another person wide open. By the way, this valuable knowledge he acquired cost me about $120,000 in tuition.

I’m sure Kurt Rambis, who put this new defense in this season, can explain how all this double-teaming works. Kurt will tell you that everyone is responsible to everyone else for rotating over to cover or at least distract all the open shooters. I’m sure Kurt means well. I know his heart is in the right place, even if his defense often isn’t. But if I wanted to see rotating, I’d get my tires changed.

To be honest, normally, one must watch a firing squad to see this many open shooters.

If you follow the Lakers with any measure of objectivity, you know their ‘defenders’ are running around aimlessly in what looks like a game of monkey-in-the-middle for pituitary cases.

In other words, the Laker defense is scrambling more than the omelet chef at the Pantry.

I’ve been covering the NBA since Kareem was Lew Alcindor and I don’t remember a better team playing poorer defense than the Lakers do.

Technical X and O stuff aside, this really brings up just one question: If the Lakers have

all this tremendous individual talent we keep hearing about, why can’t they guard anyone? Why can’t they play guys straight up on defense and get help if they need it?

It’s getting to the point where I’m worried that when the Lakers are in their cars, they won’t recognize STOP signs. A STOP, what’s that?

I’ll be first to admit, this new style is very entertaining. Every time the Lakers play, an old ABA game breaks out.

All that’s missing is the red-white-and-blue balls. And huge Afros. I’m pretty sure Bad News Barnes is gonna show up in his chartered plane any day now. Slick Leonard and Fatty Taylor ... I remember them too.

Still, I’ll tell you this. I know it’s January and the Lakers have all they can do to contrive imaginary challenges to keep themselves engaged until May and June finally come around.

I refuse to believe they will play this poor excuse for defense when the games actually count, but if they do, just for the fun of it I’ll bet there’ll be no parade on Figueroa.

In fact, as far as that bet goes, I’ll double it.

-- Ted Green

Ted Green used to cover the Lakers for the L.A. Times. He is currently senior sports producer for KTLA Prime News.

Photo, top: The Lakers’ Josh Powell, left, and Andrew Bynum double up on the Spurs’ Manu Ginobili during Wednesday night’s game in San Antonio. Credit: Eric Gay / Associated Press

Photo, inset: Kurt Rambis. Credit: Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times