First order of business for Lakers: Fix the help defense

It’s been a pretty regular happening for the Lakers the past few games:

The opposing point guard blows past Chris Duhon without much resistance. Dwight Howard sees it coming early (there’s a reason he’s three-time Defensive Player of the Year) and rotates over to cut off the lane — but then nobody helps the helper. Nobody makes the next rotation to pick up Howard’s man, or if they do it is late. Either way a big man gets a shot at the rim or there is a wide-open guy on the perimeter for a kick-out corner three.

The Lakers defensive rotations are maybe their biggest weakness right now (outside of injuries, anyway) and if they are going to start winning that is the first thing that has to be fixed.

Howard is understandably frustrated as he tries to quarterback this thing and he said as much to Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com.

“Guys have to understand I’m going to try to block shots and I’m going to help as early as I can and I’m going to be there,” Howard was quoted as saying. “We have to get each other’s back.”

And, Kobe Bryant endorsed the frustration, saying, “He should be. He can’t do everything defensively. He’s doing as much as he can, changing shots and the things of that nature. But when teams are getting out in the break and laying the ball up so many times, there’s not much you can do.”

The thing is, Kobe is part of the problem — his rotations have been terrible at times and at other points he was busy arguing a call and didn’t even get back over half court to help in transition. Howard has barked at Kobe because of it. The bigger issue with Bryant is that he has gone back to doing a lot of roaming when his man doesn’t have the ball — he is gambling for steals and getting caught way out of position because of it. Our own Darius Soriano broke it down with video over at ForumBlueandGold.com.

We shouldn’t just single out Kobe, there isn’t a Laker who is blameless. They all are slow on rotations, get caught ball watching and when you then play a team like the Jazz that moves well off the ball you pay a serious price. But with Kobe as the team leader, more is expected of him.

While Mike D’Antoni’s offense might be free flowing, a defense is about discipline. And right now the Lakers have none on that end of the floor. That is not something the return of Steve Nash and Pau Gasol is going to instantly fix, but it is the biggest key to the Lakers turning this thing around. They are scoring points, but the Thunder, Jazz and even for a quarter Magic and Rockets exposed them on the defensive end. If the Lakers defense doesn’t improve, the team won’t, at least not to the level Lakers fans expect.