As this year's NBA Finals come to a close it becomes evident that the 2007-2008 Los Angeles Lakers need more than just a healthy Andrew Bynum to become a legitimate championship contender.  Nothing about this Laker organization resembles a champion. 

It starts in L.A. with the fans that show up to the Staples Center.  It is great to see all of the stars come out with Diane Cannon and Jack Nicholson as the old holdovers from the Magic Johnson/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar "Showtime" era, but that is where the comparisons stop.  Never has there been such a weak crowd watching their team play for any championship in any sport.  The current crop of Laker fans give their team exactly no home court advantage.  Once the Lakers sprinted out to big leads at home, the Staples Center became as quiet as a church.  In contrast, the fans in Boston were loud and supportive of their team from the opening tip.  Watching on TV, deafening chants of "De-Fense, De-Fense" coming from the Celtic crowd could be heard.  Their team was up by 30 at the time.  Laker fans, where is "Dancing Barry" when you need him?  Of course we also see a stark contrast of arenas.  Staples Center is designed for maximum revenue with three rows of luxury boxes separating the upper and lower decks.  Luxury boxes do not equal crowd noise and the silence was deafening.

On the court, it starts with defense.  Through the entire series, the Lakers could not solve the pick-n-roll of the Celtics.  Any fan watching this series watched Laker players make fundamental mistakes time and again as the Celtics took advantage of the Laker inability to adjust to anything Boston did.  The story of Game 6 was the Celtics' second chances.  The Lakers could not buy a defensive rebound while Boston consistently took advantage of the second chances given them by the Lakers.  Rebounding is a team effort and throughout the series the scene was one Laker surrounded by 3 Celtics fighting for a rebound.  To top this off, the Lakers could not make their free-throws.  This is heart.  This is focus.  This is fundamental basketball.  This is all missing from this Laker team.

By contrast, the Celtics played incredible defense throughout the series.  Yes, there were some opening quarters where the Lakers put on an offensive show, but they were always short lived.  The Celtics defense took over and the leads always disappeared-including the largest come from behind win in NBA Finals history.   The Celtics put on a clinic for all to see on how to play great team defense.  Paul Pierce shut down Kobe Bryant and the Celtic team bottled him up and made him an almost non-factor in this series.

And that is the final point about this year's Lakers.  Kobe Bryant is a great player, but he is not the second coming of Michael Jordan.  Despite his great regular season, Kobe showed us why Michael was so special.  Jordan was never shut out of a playoff series like Kobe was this one.  There was never a time when Jordan was unable to put his team on his back and find a way to get the bucket they needed, the assist, rebound, steal or get to the foul line.  Kobe simply could not make it happen.  Kobe's supporting cast has to improve significantly as well, but his performance cannot be explained away by his teammates' inconsistent support.

If Los Angeles wants to get to the finals next year and if they want to have a shot at beating next year's Eastern Conference Champions (read: Celtics), they better make a commitment to defense, to fundamentals, focus and 48 minutes of intensity.  Simply returning a healthy Andrew Bynum will not be enough.  Phil, its time to fire up the Zen and find a way to mold this team into a champion.

Congratulations to the Celtics.  You outplayed the Lakers in every way that mattered and now you have banner #17 to hang in the rafters. 

Wow, that was more painful to write than I thought it would be . . .