PHOENIX — Sunday's death of a modest Los Angeles Lakers winning streak further diminished the mystery of why teams are beating L.A. more than usual.
With the Lakers now sort of slouching at 18-13, the attendant hand-wringing has been inspiring rumors of roster upheaval starring Pau Gaol.
But the Laker with a trade chip on his shoulder was superstar Kobe Bryant, who -- using colorful language -- suggested the team should kill the speculation.
"I'd rather for them to not trade him at all," Kobe said of Gasol after the Lakers' three-game roll ended. "If they want to do something, I wish they would (expletive) do it or come out and say they're not going to do it."
In addition to personnel roulette, another of this season's popular NBA activities has been listing reasons the Lakers have reached the predicament stage.
For starters, they're not quite as defensive as first-year coach Mike Brown becomes when his preferred style of play is accused of lacking in entertainment value. For the record, that mighty triangle offense presided over by Brown's predecessor -- the legendary Phil Jackson -- didn't exactly function through excessive speed or fancy maneuvers. But when L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers put Mike in the aforementioned crosshairs regarding the Lakers' reduced watchability, Brown's published responses indicated this interpretation of Showtime would be built on what has been perceived as severely upgraded defense.
Well, that perception's a bit exaggerated.
For testimony, let's go to coach Alvin Gentry, whose Phoenix Suns scored a 102-90 victory over the Lakers that included a 35-19, first-quarter pole-axing.
"Less possessions," Gentry said when asked before tip-off to gauge the Lakers' improved defensive prowess. "If there's less possessions, you give up fewer points and you're thought of as being better defensively."
OK, going into their 11th loss in 16 road games, the Lakers were ranked fourth in the NBA in points allowed per game (90.7). They coughed up 95.4 in Jackson's last campaign (eighth in the league), but what we really need to look at is points per 100 possessions, which gives us a team's defensive efficiency. Hey, it's not a perfect system, but it sheds a brighter light than points per game.
The Lakers were sitting at 100.4 this season, compared with 104.3 last season. Wow, an uprising of defense. But NBA offense pretty much stinks across the board in this post-lockout hay ride, with the Lakers only ranked 10th in defensive efficiency, compared with sixth in the final year of the allegedly lax Phil era. And the only thing that matters in this number crunch is how the digits stack up relative to the competition in a particular season.
True, the Lakers still are pretty salty defensively, but the offensive efficiency has slipped from sixth to 15th. That adds up to trouble. But the important question is ... drum roll ... why?
Nah, it's not really moving from the triangle to a more conventional offense. The pace is about the same. The fast-break-points ranking went from really relatively bad (26th) to the league's worst (30th), and -- even with All-Star center Andrew Bynum rising from 7 to 12 shots per game -- points in the paint have fallen from fifth to 18th.
To be sure, a coaching/system change does take time.
"I think our guys have done a great job trying to learn what we want at both ends of the floor," Brown said.
It seems what Brown wants is Kobe Bryant squeezing off three more shots per game than he did last year. With the ascending (and healthy) Bynum working the lane next to 7-foot crony Gasol, you'd think the Lakers would play more paint ball. But ... well ... that's Kobe.
After slapping 18 points on the Suns in the third quarter of Friday's win in L.A., Bryant went 11 of 24 (including 1 of 8 from 3-point range) for Sunday's 32 points. He also was bothered enough to commit 10 turnovers and bring up the Gasol rumors to reporters visiting the Laker locker room after the game.
Moving Gasol for a player or players who might supply certain qualities the Lakers are perceived to be lacking could be much like robbing Peter to pay Paul. (No, not Chris Paul.)
Yeah, in Jackson's triangle the Lakers never bothered with a drive-and-dish point guard. But even with Jackson and his triangle in the wind, Derek Fisher returned after the lockout marathon to share the position with holdover Steve Blake.
It also should be noted that while coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers to some regular-season glory in his final two seasons there, Brown presided over a really efficient offense (ranking sixth two years ago and fourth the year before that). Perhaps that efficiency had something to do with LeBron James moving the ball around. Putting Mo Williams alongside LeBron to knock in jumpers from the point guard position didn't hurt, and it also served as proof that Brown doesn't need an overtly drive-and-kick point guard, either.
He had a primary ballhandler in Cleveland (LBJ), just like he has one in L.A. (Kobe). In his offense, that should be enough.
But in L.A., he also has the best two-headed low-post monster in the NBA.
"Gasol, arguably, is the best low-post player in the league," Suns power forward Channing Frye said. "Well, next to Tim Duncan."
And, according to Brown, consistency of focus from Bynum could make him "a dominant force in this game."
So there you go. A team with skilled and enormous post players isn't easy for any NBA team to deal with.
Unfortunately, half of this duo (Bynum) occupied a seat on the Lakers' bench for the final 10 minutes of the fourth quarter. Thanks to that first-quarter blitz, Bryant's attempted high-noon approach wasn't quite enough to pull L.A. to within plausible striking distance.
So Brown was forced to play Troy Murphy and Jason Kapono because they happen to be Lakers with reasonable chances to make perimeter shots. As any Lakers fan worth his Kobe jersey knows, Metta World Peace and Derek Fisher have been stone cold the entire season.
The grinding, no-penetration-mad-point-guard style Brown has used probably would be working a lot more smoothly if Gasol and Bynum combined to average more than 25 attempts and the other guys simply made more perimeter shots. Although Gasol has been operating a bit farther away from the rim than in the past (his field-goal percentage is down, his attempts are about the same), he and Bynum looked pretty efficient at times against the Suns. Gasol finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds; Bynum checked in with 16 and 10.
"We just didn't come out the right way," Gasol said. "They were more ready than we were to come out and compete. The energy wasn't there, our minds weren't there. We thought we could maybe get away with playing through the motions and win at the end, but you can't."
