Youth and Defense Should Be Lakers’ Mantra

Now that teamwork beat Dreamworks, what’s next for the Lakers?

The Lakers went down looking too old and unathletic around their foundation of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. In the end, it was just like last year, only with a delayed result.

Last year, after bowing out to the San Antonio Spurs in the second round, the Lakers chose to get even older. That was a freak occurrence. When any franchise gets the chance to bring in players with the credentials of Karl Malone and Gary Payton at below market value, it has to do it.

This year the Lakers must go in the opposite direction. They need to get younger. And they need to place an emphasis on defense.

They actually tried to get better on defense a year ago. In the off-season, Coach Phil Jackson flew to Hawaii to meet with Jerry Buss. They locked in on Payton as their primary target, with the idea that he could solidify their defense by cutting off the point-guard penetration that had devastated the Lakers.

When Detroit point guard Chauncey Billups hauled the NBA Finals most valuable player trophy with him to the postgame interview podium Tuesday night, having outscored Payton, 105-21, for the series, it served as one final reminder that Payton didn’t work out on offense or defense.

As much as the offense around the Lakers’ two big stars failed and resulted in two of the four lowest-scoring games in Laker playoff history, it was the defense that did them in during their five-game humbling at the hands of the Pistons. They couldn’t get stops and secure rebounds when games hung in the balance, and couldn’t make any semblance of a defensive stand in the finale, when the Pistons racked up 100 points.

The Lakers couldn’t get ugly enough. They found it beneath them. They knew their fans weren’t paying exorbitant Staples Center ticket prices to watch an NBA version of the Carolina Panthers.

The Pistons don’t mind ugly. Their fans appreciate it. After all, somewhere in the stands are people who designed, built and even bought Pontiac Azteks.

Bryant brings flash, a game perfectly suited for the entertain-us mentality of L.A.

The moment he opts out of his contract he becomes the biggest question mark in their summer. The Lakers will throw as much money at him as the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement will allow, they’ll probably let Jackson walk away and take the triangle offense with him, and might even try to trade Shaquille O’Neal.

Bryant still could leave if he’s in the mood. And even if he decides to stay, a jury in his sexual assault case could have the final say in his next destination.

That’s one of the risks inherent in choosing Bryant over O’Neal. Another that must be considered is whether Bryant’s body will hold up. He’ll turn 26 this summer, not even in his prime yet. But as he likes to say, it’s not the age it’s the mileage. And he has a lot on the odometer -- eight NBA seasons plus another season-and-a-half in the form of 119 playoff games.

His body has played more than 71 games only three times in seven seasons (not including the lockout-shortened 1999 season). He lasted all 82 regular-season games for the first time in his career in 2002-03, but the effort wore him down so much that he needed surgery on his shoulder and knee in the summer. This season, he missed 16 games, first with the knee, then a shoulder and finally a cut finger.

Against the Pistons, Bryant seemed more intent on winning his first Finals MVP award than winning the Finals themselves, shooting recklessly even in games when O’Neal was dominating inside.

The other quandary for the Lakers, though, is that O’Neal could not dominate at will. He did it only twice during five Finals games, both times when he had more than one day’s rest. With the NBA promising to tighten up even those elongated first-round series next year, he can forget about getting big breaks between games. And it appears that we can forget about O’Neal winning a series single-handedly again.

If Bryant could work with him, they might be able to squeeze out one more championship together. But the Finals showed that they can’t coexist any longer, can’t put aside their individual agendas and their jealousies long enough to win four games in the ultimate series.

Bryant has wanted to show he can do this on his own, as if O’Neal were a hindrance to his being recognized as great. O’Neal doesn’t want to be around Bryant much longer, anyway.

But O’Neal, 32, still has two more years on his contract, worth $62 million. To trade him, the Lakers would have to find a team willing to take on that contract, and the Lakers would have to be willing to take back $30 million a year in salary.

The preference for the Lakers would be to get back contracts that are close to expiring, so they can use the subsequent salary-cap space to retool their roster. Dallas’ Antoine Walker ($14.6 million next season) is one such player, but the Lakers would still have to take another $15 million from the Mavericks, and the rest of their big contracts still have multiple years remaining.

Swapping O’Neal to Indiana in a trade built around Jermaine O’Neal would be another possibility; it would put the Pacers in position to win the Eastern Conference next year and give the Lakers a young big man to pair with Bryant.

Bryant and O’Neal. At one time it sure seemed like a great concept.

But if Bryant and O’Neal can’t get it done on command anymore, no matter what the surrounding cast, it’s time to try something else.

Hey, it worked for the Pistons.

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J.A .Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.