UCLA turns up the defense to wear down USC

A UCLA fan longing for the good old days in Westwood saw a glimpse of them Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion.

The seconds were ticking off the Bruins’ 64-50 win against their crosstown rival USC, and the fan, standing in the bleachers behind the Bruins’ basket, knew the way UCLA did it looked awfully familiar.

“That’s how the Final Four teams played defense,” he said.

UCLA (15-7, 7-3 in Pacific 10 Conference play) turned its one-point halftime lead into a double-digit win with a suffocating defense.

The Bruins held USC (12-11, 4-6) to just 15 second-half points, as the Trojans missed 16 of 23 shots after halftime.

And three of those misses came on fastbreak attempts, such as when UCLA junior guard Lazeric Jones chased down USC senior guard Donte Smith and emphatically swatted his layup attempt with 4 minutes 25 seconds left in the second half, bringing the mostly Bruin blue crowd of 10,419 to its feet.

“Our defense hurt us at times, but the bottom line is that they shot 39%,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland said.

As USC missed 31 of 51 shots, including eight of nine from three-point range, the other defensive area that contributed heavily to the bottom line of UCLA’s win was rebounding.

Consider:

UCLA went into the locker room at halftime with a one-point lead and a one-rebound advantage.

The Bruins finished with a 14-point victory as they outrebounded the Trojans in the final 20 minutes by 14.

Coincidence? Hardly.

“They scored on those rebounds, too,” said USC guard Jio Fontan, who missed all five of his shots from the field and both from the free-throw line.

“That’s what killed us.”

Aside from holding Fontan scoreless, to which credit is owed the player who guarded him, UCLA sophomore guard Tyler Honeycutt, the Bruins also held USC’s other two starting guards, freshman Maurice Jones and senior Marcus Simmons, to seven total points on a combined three-for-seven shooting from the field.

But Howland said the key change came in the final six minutes, when UCLA stopped double-teaming USC junior guard Nikola Vucevic on defense and instead let Reeves Nelson guard him one on one.

And the UCLA sophomore forward won that competition, as Vucevic, who had scored 18 points by then, didn’t score the rest of the game.

“Reeves was huge, playing one-on-one against him,” Howland said. “He also had 11 rebounds for us and was a force in the paint.”

Defense had been USC’s calling card. The Trojans entered the game with the Pac-10’s second-ranked scoring defense (63.3 points allowed per game).

But USC Coach Kevin O’Neill said his team, which has just a seven-man rotation, was worn down by the depth and talent of UCLA, a fact evident in the Bruins’ 26-11 advantage in bench points.

“They have really good talent, let’s face it,” O’Neill said. “They have talented offensive players. They’re a difficult guard for anybody, let alone us with seven guys.

“They’re a good team and they’re getting better.”

For Bruin fans, who have seen their team win six of seven games since falling to USC on Jan. 9, that’s some long-awaited good news.

baxter.holmes@latimes.com