There’s No Quit in This Story

Frank Hamblen played dumb Saturday.

The Laker coach, claiming ignorance of the marvels of modern communication, said he had no idea that his blistering critique of his team in Denver on Thursday night had been the talk of the basketball community back in L.A., fodder for talk shows and frustrated fans.

After the Lakers lost to the Nuggets, 117-96, Hamblen, in his postgame news conference, said, “The second half, I thought our guys quit, to some degree.”

Told of the local reaction before Saturday’s practice at the team’s El Segundo training center, Hamblen grinned and said, “I guess I better choose my words more carefully.”

Guard Chucky Atkins believes Hamblen chose exactly the words he wanted Thursday, although the coach didn’t repeat those words to his players. It was a message through the media, in Atkins’ view.

“I think that was the reason he said it. He didn’t want to put us down, by any means,” Atkins said. “I don’t think it was a reflection on our team and myself. But Frank is a guy who says what he thinks, and I think he was trying to fire us up and get us going. Any good coach would do the same thing.

“When you are in sixth place and, all of a sudden, you drop down to 10th place, it’s disheartening.”

Especially disheartening, in Atkins’ view, is the team’s defense. The Lakers are giving up 100.1 points a game, 22nd in the 30-team NBA.

“We haven’t spent a whole lot of time on defense at any practices this season,” Atkins said. “We have just played it by ear. And now, we’re struggling for it.”

Atkins, who played the majority of his career with the Detroit Pistons, said it was different there.

“We worked on defense every day,” he said. “It wasn’t either or. It was, this is how we are going to do it.”

In response, Hamblen defended his own attention to defense, but declined to discuss the practices of former coach Rudy Tomjanovich, who resigned because of health reasons at the beginning of February.

*

Forward Lamar Odom, who has sat out three games because of a slight tear and bruised rotator cuff in his left shoulder, practiced Saturday. His availability for today will be a game-time decision.

TODAY

vs. Philadelphia, 4:30 p.m.,

FSNW, ESPN

Site -- Staples Center.

Radio -- 570, 1330.

Records -- Lakers 32-36, 76ers 34-34.

Record vs. 76ers -- 0-1.

Update -- In a season that threatens new low points every game, the Lakers will be trying to avoid yet another today. They have never lost to Philadelphia at Staples Center, having gone 5-0 against the 76ers since moving into the arena. The last Laker home loss to Philadelphia was in the 1997-98 season, when the Forum was still the Lakers’ home court.