I remembered this saying after recent events in Minnesota. After all, take a look at this. In the 1984 NBA Finals that pitted finals perennials the Celtics and the Lakers, in Game 4 Celtic power forward Kevin McHale clothes-lined Kurt Rambis as he was going in for an easy bucket. Rambis landed hard on his back and neck. As ugly a play as you’ll see, but those were pre-flagrant days. The benches emptied, but there were no fights – or suspensions. Rambis went after McHale but tumbled into the courtside cameramen. Celtic star Larry Bird helped Rambis up. The Lakers, who were favored to win, were so shaken that their nemesis took another final from them. (You can see it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7r6vXeOfyQ.)

So 25 years later – this coming around business can take time, you see – McHale, now the coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves after being demoted from a front office job, is unceremoniously pushed out the door. And weeks later is replaced by Rambis, who gets a nice 4-year deal. It’s not like Rambis had been waiting for 25 years; the Lakers beat those same Celtics in two other Finals match-ups a few years later. But there does seem to be something, well, karmic about this.

I wasn’t the only one to notice that, of course. But that turning continued today when Bill Laimbeer was named one of the assistants to Rambis. Yes, Bill Laimbeer, the former center of the Detroit Pistons. One of the Bad Boys. Perhaps the ugliest, meanest, least-liked of the Bad Boys. The same Bad Boys who pushed the Lakers to 7 games in 1987 before losing (on some questionable referee calls, it should be noted, for the conspiracy theorists). A year later, they dethroned the Lakers, who were without Magic Johnson and Byron Scott. Laimbeer pushed around Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Jabbar’s last games as a pro. (Rambo’s last year as a Laker, too, it should be noted.)

Laimbeer, you may recall, retired as coach of the defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock just a game or two into the WNBA season this summer. Coincidentally, his old team, the NBA Detroit Pistons, were looking for a new coach. Fans in Detroit wrote to the papers and called in to radio sports talk shows urging that Laimbeer be given a shot as the coach of the Pistons. The Pistons’ front office head honcho, Joe Dumars, a teammate of Laimbeer’s from those Bad Boy days, quietly went his way, finally opting for the relatively unknown (outside NBA coaching circles anyway), John Kuester, an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

A colleague in Detroit calls that the right move, noting that when Laimbeer was a commentator for the Pistons, he rarely talked to players before or after games, and the few times he did venture into the locker room, he was largely ignored. Not a guy with people skills, you might say. My colleague goes so far as to say Laimbeer was actively disliked and would have been a terrible choice as Pistons head coach.

Bill Laimbeer as an assistant to Kurt Rambis? This coming around karma thing has me worried. What next? Robert Parish as an assistant? Isiah Thomas as a consultant? Tommy Heinsohn as the Wolves TV Commentator?

Assistant coach Kurt Rambis is the team’s defensive coordinator, so to speak. Yes, the Lakers do trap a bit, but that’s kind of the window dressing of what they do.

Their basic problem defines what Rambis has chosen to do on defense. Phil Jackson’s teams have always struggled with small, quick guards that break down the bigger guards that Jackson likes to use. This type of penetration has proven deadly for the Lakers in particular. So Rambis has basically chosen to pack in the defense and concede the open three-pointer.

One Laker insider says Jackson has chosen to give Rambis this much power because he wants to help him get a head coaching job. Yikes. He may not be doing Rambis any favors. At times the Lakers D looks to be a jumbled mess. Other times, it works well enough. After all, they have jumped out of the gate with better than 20 wins. 

But everyone involved senses problems, including Jackson’s fine coaching staff (Rambis, Frank Hamblen, Brian Shaw, Jim Cleamons, and several others). These coaches are not all on the same page about this defensive philosophy, but Rambis is calling the shots. So pack it in they do. 

Years ago, Bulls GM Jerry Krause first hired Phil Jackson and declared that he was a “defensive genius.” Krause repeated that assessment earlier this year. But he was wrong back then and he was wrong again recently.

Phil Jackson is no defensive genius. In fact, he became enchanted with the triangle offense years ago and began directing most of his coaching energy to that end of the floor. Jackson still does that, and he has done it with substantial success. Jackson has felt comfortable turning the defensive issues over to Rambis. To Kurt’s credit, the Lakers surprised some teams early with their trapping and steals. But teams have adjusted, and the Lakers still have their same old problems.

The Lakers are a team sorely in need of a defensive overhaul and some new defensive life, which means they’ll probably have to make some personnel changes to achieve it. Kobe Bryant is still an excellent on-ball defender. The problem comes when he’s playing off the ball. Bryant has a tendency to gamble off his man and leave him open to do major damage when Bryant’s gambles don’t work, which is often.

The Lakers need to rethink their defensive philosophy and come up with something that gives them a reasonable chance to defend. For starters, they need to re-establish tough man-to-man principles, get back to the basics, so to speak. If they don’t do that, it won’t matter how dominant they are in the Western Conference. If they’re lucky enough to return to the league championship series, they’ll once again find a Rajon Rondo and others breaking them down, with Celtics shooters killing them with open threes, just as Eddie House, James Posey, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce did last year.

Good basic man defense is the first step in the Lakers getting the mental toughness they need to compete for a title. Fortunately, there’s some basketball left to be played. But this is an issue that has to be addressed now. Revising your philosophy is something you can’t do in March and April.

NEW BLOG DESIGN

Those of you who used to read Lakernoise will notice that I have a new blog design. This new lease on life is due to the hard efforts of Andrew Mager and  Marc ( http://twitter.com/marcm ). They’ve done a great job coming up with the new look.

I still write the blog for hoopshype.com

You can find it at http://blogs.hoopshype.com/blogs/lazenby/index.php