They have no defense for it

The Lakers won’t find it offending if you blame their defending.

They were doing it too.

In the aftermath of their 106-95 pounding Friday at the hands of the Detroit Pistons, the Lakers didn’t point fingers at each other. They pointed in the general direction of a defense that stopped communicating, stopped going to the ball, stopped creating turnovers for easy baskets the other way.

In fact, the Lakers stopped doing everything . . . including containing Allen Iverson.

Iverson had 25 points and drove to the basket with ease, frustrating Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar, and finding little resistance under the basket.

“Defensively we were a step slow and at one point we were just going through the motions, and that was disappointing,” Farmar said. “Usually we get energy and cohesiveness from our defense as we play together, help each other out, rotate, get loose balls and deflections, but none of that happened and our offense was stagnant because of that.”

The Lakers (7-1) had been holding teams to 40.2% shooting and a league-best 86.7 points a game.

Then came Friday night and the end of the “stifling defense” talk for at least a weekend.

The Pistons made 50.7% of their shots and followed Iverson and Rasheed Wallace (25 points, 13 rebounds) to victory.

“Our defense wasn’t there,” forward Lamar Odom said. “And that’s why we lost.”

Blemished record

The loss against Detroit ended the Lakers’ pursuit of the best start in franchise history (11-0 in 1997-98).

“82-0 is pretty much impossible, so we expected it to happen at some point,” Farmar said. “It’s disappointing we had to go out like that, but give the Pistons credit.”

The Lakers had the day off Saturday and will return to the practice court today.

Their next game is Tuesday against Chicago, the start of a busy stretch in which they play five games in eight days.

With a bullet

In one game, Kobe Bryant moved past two players to 22nd on the NBA all-time scoring chart, 378 points behind Clyde Drexler.

Bryant, 30, passed Larry Bird and Gary Payton after scoring 29 points Friday. He now has 21,817 points.

“It’s always a great honor when you’re in that company,” Bryant said. “It’s special.”

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the league’s all-time leading scorer (38,387 points).

Iverson, meanwhile, passed Lakers great Elgin Baylor to take 19th place with 23,156 points.

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com