Lakers looking to put up a much stronger defense

TheLakers’ Kyle Kuzma was going to have to guard Utah Jazz forward JoeJohnson on Tuesday night, a man entering his 16th season in the NBA,who’d earned the nickname “Iso Joe” for his tendency to gravitate towardisolation plays.What started as a pejorative nickname is now a compliment, and Johnson would be a problematic assignment for the rookie.Luckily,Kuzma had some help. Not on the court, but off it. He had a veteran whocould help him face this challenge, one who has spent more than adecade in the NBA learning the minutia of players’ tendencies.“If hefaces you up, you know he’s going to take two slow dribbles,” CoreyBrewer told Kuzma. “So you have to kind of play with him, you have totry to jump at him and get him off his rhythm. Because if he gets intohis rhythm and he makes the hang dribble, he’s going to shoot thejumper, he’s not going to miss it. That’s why he’s called ‘Iso Joe.’“Brewer advised Kuzma before the game. He reinforced it during the game.“Onetime he posted up, and I told him, ‘You can’t just back off him becauseif he goes to your body first, you’re dead,’“ Brewer said. “You have togo to him first and try to get him off balance, I guess you could say.Lot of little things people don’t understand about basketball.”Brewer’stutelage is in the hope of fixing the Lakers’ most consistent andtroubling problem over the last several seasons. In the last four, theLakers have ranked last in defensive rating twice, 29th once and 28thonce. Most of the Lakers roster has never played on a competentdefensive team, and it’s a problem that predates coach Luke Walton, whotook over the team after being on the coaching staff of the Golden StateWarriors, one of the best defensive teams in the NBA.“It’s not onlybuilding the habits and identity and creating the culture that we wantin place, but to do that you have to break old habits and old ways ofthinking,” Walton said. “There is definitely a part of you, anything inlife, if that is what you know and part of what you experienced in life,it kind of becomes how you accept it and we have to break that mind-setand create this new one and that takes time.”Fixing the problemtakes the whole village. It takes constant and repetitive drill work.Individual attention from the assistant coaches. And it takes veteranswilling to mentor young players, to teach them how to play defense inthe NBA.Brewer has helped young players. So has Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, signed during the summer in part for his ability on defense.Caldwell-Popesaid those skills started when he was in college at Georgia, where acoach urged him to think more about defense. “I started guarding all theteams’ best players and just made that one focus of mine and it carriedover to the league,” Caldwell-Pope said. “It just gets me going. I liketo pressure guys. Turn the ball over, get a steal or make them throw abad pass.”A low point for the Lakers this preseason came in theirthird game. Facing the Denver Nuggets, they gave up 41 points in thefirst quarter and 74 by halftime. Walton lamented the lack of effort andspoke to the team the next day to make clear that what he saw wasunacceptable.Since then, the Lakers have been better. Theirpreseason defensive rating is about middle of the pack. They beat theSacramento Kings 75-69 in Las Vegas. Against the Jazz, they gave up 105points, but there were signs of progress.Some of the players’mindsets are changing. Walton said Jordan Clarkson seems to care moreabout defense this season. Caldwell-Pope said he sees the potential for agreat defender in Brandon Ingram. He also likes what he sees fromguards Vander Blue and Josh Hart.Brewer believes the group can change things.“Iam 100 percent sure that we are going to be better than last year,”Brewer said. “We are not going to be 30th, come on now. That’s horrible.... When I was in Houston, when we were in the locker room, we couldsee the standings, where you were offensively and defensively. And wewanted to be the No. 1 team offensively and be a top 10 defensively. Ifeel like over here, we should be a top-five offensive team and a top-10defensive team.”A long road lies between the Lakers currently andthat lofty goal. But reaching for it might help the Lakers crawl from abasement that has become so comfortable.