Only parade is a layup line

Louder and louder, investing all their energy and hope in two simple syllables, the Staples Center crowd begged the Lakers to play defense and stop the Sacramento Kings’ scoring spree in the first half Sunday.

The Lakers responded as if they’d never heard the word before.

For every bit of fire Kobe Bryant displayed in scoring 20 points in the first 24 minutes, Sacramento created a fireworks’ show worth of sparks by scoring an uncontested basket at the other end.

For every time that Ronny Turiaf and Sasha Vujacic brought great energy off the bench, one of their teammates brought the budding momentum to a screeching halt by playing atrocious perimeter defense or committing one of the Lakers’ 19 turnovers.

For everything the Lakers did right Sunday, they did two things wrong on defense.

And even though they had a chance to win at the end until Bryant’s desperation jumper clanged off the rim, they had good reason to be annoyed at themselves after their 114-113 loss to the Kings.

With a chance to move 1 1/2 games ahead of San Antonio atop the Western Conference and stay four games ahead of Phoenix in the Pacific division, the Lakers instead stumbled to a loss that should sting for a day or two.

The Lakers, 44-19 and even with the Spurs in the loss column, allowed a season-worst 71 points in the first half. It was a figure so stunning that Lamar Odom seemed unable to comprehend it.

“Seventy-one points playing against any team, playing against Dominguez High School, is too much,” he said.

“Seventy-one points -- c’mon.”

That’s right. Seventy-one points, on 54.5% shooting.

Four first-half turnovers for Jordan Farmar. Two for Bryant. Eleven as a team.

Lakers Coach Phil Jackson insisted that his team did some good things defensively in the second half in holding the Kings to 43 points, and that’s one way to look at it.

But 71 points is the other way to look at it.

The bad way.

A way the Lakers cannot continue to play, not when the defending champion Spurs are known for their exemplary defense.

Even the Suns showed Sunday that maybe the Shaquille O’Neal trade won’t be a total disaster, holding the Spurs in check in an impressive 94-87 victory at Phoenix.

“I think we are confident enough that we think down the stretch we are going to get it done. But you’ve got to put teams away any chance you get,” Pau Gasol said.

“If we can do it in the first quarter, we’ve got to go ahead and do it.”

They didn’t come close.

“We were a little too flat. I don’t think we did a good job starting off the game,” Gasol said. “They came out aggressive with a point to prove and we didn’t respond well in the first half.

“We felt like we had to turn it up in the second half but I feel we should do a better job starting off games and get the intensity going right from the beginning.”

There’s a plan that the Lakers, who have given up more than 100 points in four of their last five games, might want to adopt.

This could be a wake-up call.

“It should be,” Sasha Vujacic said.

“We played terrible defense in the first half. It’s something we have to look at in practice.”

They’ll practice hard today, probably harder than Jackson might have originally planned.

But with a home game coming up against Toronto on Tuesday before they depart for New Orleans, Houston, Dallas and Utah, the Lakers can’t afford to get into any bad habits defensively -- or in any other phase of the game.

“Coach said one thing after the game: We have to try to win 50 before we lose 20,” Vujacic said.

They can still do that, but it doesn’t look promising with this challenging trip looming.

If they want the top seeding in the West, they’ll have to earn it with far better defense than they played Sunday.

“Definitely we realize how important it is to be first in the conference,” said Vujacic, who scored 15 points.

“A few weeks ago, when we were starting to play the way we are, since the Gasol trade, Coach took us in the video room and he explained to us how important it’s going to be to have that home-court advantage.

“With the team we have right now we’re having fun. We know we can win against anyone so we are definitely considering it.”

Jackson said before the game the overriding goal is to finish in the top four in the conference and get home-court advantage. Earning the No. 1 seeding is secondary.

“But those things, as we go out on the road, we’re just trying to win,” he said. “Every game we have a chance to win, we’re trying to win that game. This team isn’t going to take any games off. They know this race that’s going on, a slide, an injury, just taking a night off, that’s going to hurt you.”

Taking the first half off Sunday was enough to derail them.

That’s how tight this race is going to be.

Much tighter than the defense they played Sunday.

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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com.

To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.