Until Defense Gets Better, Optimism Is Only Guarded

They’ve had one winning month this season, they’re only one game above .500 and remain one game behind Houston in the games-lost column for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot. So why think of the Lakers as the ones to beat?

In between the Michael Jordan retrospectives at All-Star weekend, players and announcers kept saying the Lakers were the favorites to win it all again. The NBA’s announcement that the first round of the playoffs would expand from a best-of-five format to best-of-seven was viewed as a boon to the Lakers, something that would make it even harder to knock them out -- even though they aren’t even in yet.

Apparently, all it took to nullify everything else that had occurred in the first half of the season was a five-game winning streak.

If nothing else, they have one thing going for them: attitude.

“I don’t know if we’re playing like champions,” Kobe Bryant said. “I can say we’re playing with the character of a champion, because that was a tough five-game stretch for us and we came out 5-0.”

It’s hard to call an undefeated string that included four road games and four playoff-bound opponents counterfeit, but it was deceiving. They beat a Sacramento team that didn’t have Chris Webber and Bobby Jackson. They beat an Indiana squad without Ron Artest. And they played defense only when they felt like it.

The Lakers gave up 113 points to the Kings, 109 to the New York Knicks. The Pacers scored 94 points despite shooting 35%, with many of the misfires on open jump shots.

“Defensively we’re coming along,” Coach Phil Jackson said. “We still have a ways to go before we hit playoff stride.”

But there is confidence in their gait, something clearly lacking earlier in the season.

“We kind of lost our footing there, we panicked,” said Robert Horry. “We didn’t keep our mind-set right. We kind of steered different ways. We’ve got to be strong. Just go out there and play hard and not worry about what happened. As long as we play as a team, we’ll be all right.”

The mental state of the Lakers? They were loose and laughing Monday as they regrouped after the break. It sounded like a party inside the weight room as they yelled and laughed while Jackson addressed the media.

Of course, those could be danger signs. As Bryant said, “We’ve been a team that responds to challenges the past three years,” and, conversely, they tend to ease off the gas pedal and cruise when there are no cars in front of them.

Horry said the Lakers’ slow start would cure that problem, that the rest of the season is in crisis mode.

“We can look at the standings and see that we can’t really coast right now,” he said, and no one knows coasting the way Horry knows it. “As long as we’ve got that in front of us, we know we’ve got to go out there and play hard and try to get as many wins as possible.”

When they were asked about the new playoff format, they didn’t seem to think it would especially help or harm them.

I think the last thing the Lakers need is more playoff games and more travel. But I don’t think the Dallas Mavericks, who have yet to win a showdown game in the West, want any part of the Lakers in any round, any format. And there have been times this season when the only good thing I could think to say about the Lakers was that it’s hard to imagine beating Kobe and Shaq four times out of seven.

That’s especially true given the way Bryant has been playing lately, averaging 40.2 points in the last five games. He’s not only scoring, he’s finding ways to beat teams. People who thought the ending of the All-Star game was anticlimactic, that Bryant’s two free throws ruined the Hollywood ending of Jordan’s high-arching jump shot at the end of the first overtime, missed the point. That was as symbolic a torch-passing as Jordan’s halftime speech. At the moment, Bryant is more worthy than anyone else of having the ball in his hands at the end of the game.

Before we move on, we have to address two key developments from the All-Star game. First, Mariah Carey’s return to top singing and dress-filling form. Not only was she hitting all the ridiculously high notes again, she looked so good in that No. 23 Washington Wizard “jersey” that she actually beat out Jordan for NBA.com’s photo of the day.

Second, Shaquille O’Neal looked livelier than he has all season. He leaped for a lob pass from Steve Nash and assaulted the rim on the dunk. He showed off his dribbling and passing skills. He blocked Jordan’s shot (well, everyone did that).

“I was impressed with his energy in the All-Star game,” said a tanned and clean-shaven Rick Fox. “ I thought he was quite excited about playing. He was going up and down, seemed to be having fun. This time of year is always more interesting for Shaquille. It’s closer to what we play for, which is the playoffs and competing for a championship. His whole demeanor shifts to more of a focus to detail, more of a focus to being a bigger force.”

O’Neal’s 60% free-throw shooting has been one of the quieter surprises of the season, and was one of the factors Phil Jackson listed when asked what’s going right for the Lakers. But O’Neal’s overall mood remains a mystery, apparently even to the Lakers.

Jackson based his evaluation of O’Neal on observation, not conversation.

“You can tell when he’s shooting shots and not just dunks, he’s confident that he can shoot shots and make them,” Jackson said. “That’s really a sign for us.”

Jackson didn’t get to talk to him Monday because O’Neal didn’t come to practice. (He and fellow All-Star Bryant were excused from heavy work, but Bryant was one of the first out on the court to work on his shot.)

The Lakers aren’t assured of anything yet. As brilliant as Bryant has been, if they’re going to repeat -- or even make the playoffs -- they’ll need O’Neal at something close to his old form.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.