Lakers have Kurt Response

December 7, 2008

The Lakers may look a little more familiar to Celtics fans when the teams get together on Christmas Day. At least their defense may.



That's because Los Angelenos have begun playing the same type of sagging defense that has helped make the locals the gold standard for NBA resistance. The Lakers haven't talked about it much, but when it was noticed and brought up to Phil Jackson, he had an interesting response.

``We didn't want to announce it and make a big deal about it like Boston did with their guy,'' Jackson said, referring to defensive guru Tom Thibodeau. ``But Kurt (Rambis) is real good at this and he's willing. Kurt's been pestering me for a year or so about doing some things defensively that I was reluctant to do. I come from the old school where you play man, and you have that man and that's your primary goal.''

Thus far, the Lakers have shown good improvement on that end of the floor. And while Jackson credits Rambis, the point (or lack of points) were certainly driven home during last season's Finals. Now LA is trying to find some new scoring options to make defenses like the Celtics' pay for their concentration on Kobe Bryant.

``We know that Boston literally said, `We've got to take Kobe out. We just have to throw our defense at them.' We have to have more guys fit into our offense if we're going to be a team that can compete with those clubs,'' Jackson said.

Elsewhere in Lakerland, there is the usual selection of fun and games to keep the papers fed.
On Monday in Indiana, Bryant became the second-youngest player in NBA history to reach 22,000 points. The game before that, when he still had a chance to beat Wilt Chamberlain's standard by a day, the chase (he was 38 away at the time) was mentioned in the club's game notes.

Jackson wasn't entirely amused.

``That was like (putting) a carrot in front of a donkey, whoever did that,'' Jackson said when the note was brought to his attention. ``It was stupid. That could really mess up the game for tonight.
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`Kobe does have agendas at times that will come out. A couple years ago, when things didn't go well, he went on that tear. He could get into that (again). You hope that he stays focused on what the overall plan is.''

After scoring 23 against the Raptors, Bryant said, ``I had no idea. I've got to be honest with you, I don't follow anything of that sort. I just go out and play.''

Bryant went on to insist he doesn't get into all that individual stuff - though reporters pulled back from his nose when he said it.

``Phil likes to give you guys quotes to mess with you because you write that stuff,'' he said. ``At some point, you've got to figure out he does that stuff just to mess with you.

``You guys have me all wrong. I only just play. I play hard. I play the same way all the time. I never concerned myself with milestones or anything like that. Honestly, if I cared about that, I would have just gone to college, came into the league and averaged 30, got my scoring up.''