By
Billy
Witz
FOXSports.com
WITZ
ARCHIVE
ATLANTA -- Yes, Andrew Bynum took a trip to an Indian casino and partook in All-Star Game parties, but the four-day holiday from basketball also gave him time to think. And for a 23-year-old who readies himself for games by reading -- Oscar Wilde is the latest author -- it was not time idly spent.
When Bynum checked back for work on the Monday after the break, he met with Lakers coach Phil Jackson in the team's film room.
Though Bynum had returned two months earlier from offseason knee surgery, neither he nor the Lakers were quite right. Some nights he was there, some nights he was not. And the same for the team.
Just before the break, the Lakers won resoundingly in Boston and New York, then fell flat against Orlando, Charlotte and -- humiliatingly -- Cleveland.
Bynum was terrific against Dwight Howard, then flopped the next night against Kwame Brown and Nazr Mohammed.
So when Bynum met with Jackson, he told the coach he wanted to be more of a factor on the defensive end. The subject of offense -- often a sore one for the Lakers' big men -- never came up.
Jackson took this as a good sign.
"I told him the difference between us being a good club and a great club is his presence on the floor, particularly defensive and rebounding," said Jackson, who wanted to see more double jumps from Bynum. "Andrew's a pretty smart kid. He understands that."
There was never a better example of that than in Sunday's trouncing of San Antonio. How else could the catalyst of a rout of the NBA-leading Spurs be somebody who attempted only two shots and scored four points?
But there was Bynum, a 7-foot, 285-pound menace in the middle of the lane, leaving his Size 18 footprint on the game. He ripped down 17 rebounds, blocked three shots and altered countless others. Much of that damage came in the first quarter, when the Lakers raced to a 21-point lead.
"When we do that, we're definitely tough to beat," Bynum said Monday before the Lakers practiced for Tuesday night's game against the Hawks.
Much is made of the Lakers' great height. Starting aside Bynum is 7-foot-1 Pau Gasol and coming off the bench is long-armed 6-foot-10 Lamar Odom, meaning the Lakers can always keep two shot blockers on the court at all times.
But the Lakers' transformation is also a tweak they have made in their scheme and Bynum's attentiveness to his role in it.
The underlying principle is to defend the rim and the 3-point line. Because the mid-range game is a lost art, the Lakers will sacrifice 18-footers.
"That's the basic idea behind it," said Chuck Person, the assistant coach who oversees the defense. "The only true really mid-range guys left in our game [are] Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce, the only guys that have multi-faceted games. The rest of the guys in the league, you deal with them on a night-to-night basis."
The impetus for the change came last June against Boston, when the Lakers had to figure out a way to slow Pierce and Ray Allen. Some ideas were tossed out, and then revisited this season.
"As we're getting older, we need to have guys be more accountable for their defensive responsibilities," said Person, who picked up many of the principles from Rick Carlisle, whom he coached under with the Pacers. "So we went to a system that each pass of the ball determined where you go, and what your responsibilities are. Guys are aware now that this system is like the triangle [offense]. If one guy screws it up, then it makes it look really bad."
For years, going back to Shaquille O'Neal, the Lakers' greatest vulnerability has been in defending pick-and-rolls, be it Mike Bibby and Chris Webber, Tony Parker and Tim Duncan, or Steve Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire.
Bynum, like O'Neal, had a hard time hedging on screens. Instead of cutting off the guard's path to the basket, he found himself trying to contain a small quick guard far from the basket, looking like a giraffe on rollerblades.
So, at the behest of Person, the Lakers began switching their pick-and-roll defense. Now, Bynum lays off when he hedges, staying closer to the lane.
When there is no pick-and-roll, the Lakers contest everything on the 3-point line. If they get beat off the dribble, they funnel everything toward Bynum in the center. If Bynum is pulled away from the basket, then the others -- often the guards -- have to cover for him and draw charges, which they have done of late.
Consider the results since the All-Star break:
The Lakers have won all seven games and have held opponents -- four of whom would be in the playoffs today -- to 40 percent shooting and 29.5 percent on 3-pointers. If those numbers were extrapolated over the season, they would easily lead the NBA.
Bynum's play in that stretch -- in which he is averaging three blocks and 11 rebounds as well as shooting 59.5 percent (25 of 42) -- reminds Person of the way Jermaine O'Neal once played for Indiana or Tim Duncan and David Robinson did for San Antonio.
"There's no question he's the captain of this defense," Person said.
Bynum has a couple other role models in mind: Luc Longley and Bill Cartwright.
"The Bulls when they were winning, they didn't really have an offensive dominant big man, but they had guys that controlled the paint," Bynum said. "I think we have a team like that. We're going to have success as long as we commit to the defensive side of the ball."
From the looks of things, that's an assertion that won't require a second thought.
