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Defeating the Nuggets was amazingly easy. But now Kobe Bryant and the Lakers need to buckle down, as nothing will be easy from this point out.

Utah has a superstar in the making in point guard Deron Williams, who will be a handful for either Derek Fisher or Jordan Farmar. Carlos Boozer is a force inside as a scorer and rebounder, Mehmet Okur is pesky and can both pop from outside or score around the rim, and Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver and Matt Harpring are all lunchpail guys who make major contributions.

The Lakers are playing at an extremely high level. They have the kind of confidence that comes with knowing that they have Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom as their big three, plus key role players in Farmer, Luke Walton, Ronny Turiaf, Sasha Vujacic and Vladimir Radmanovic.

What they don’t do well on a night in, night out basis is play defense for an entire game. They have the capability, and they certainly can get into that mindset when they need to, unlike the Nuggets, who look at basketball as a game of HORSE set at a faster tempo.

On Monday night, the Lakers allowed lots of breezy layups to the Nuggets, which made Game 4 unnecessarily close. L.A. has that minor flaw. They make not so much a commitment to defense as a promise. The Lakers will pledge to play defense if they need to, when the preferred course of action is to clamp down from the opening tipoff to the final buzzer — as the defending champion San Antonio Spurs do — and adopt a permanent defensive stance.

Utah has the weaponry to provide the Lakers with that wakeup call. (Note: Should the Rockets come back and win that first-round series, the Lakers in the next round can continue to play the kind of half-hearted defense that enabled them to eliminate Denver, since Houston is Denver with less offense, more defense and not nearly as much body art.) And the Jazz is one of those teams that keeps creeping closer to the mountaintop. It gained the Western Conference finals last year before falling to San Antonio in five games. Utah’s players believe they’re ready to go beyond that, Lakers or no Lakers.

The Nuggets were the bad reality show that people watched because it was on and because there was some voyeuristic fascination in observing angry, selfish people in close quarters. The Lakers were wise not to get too wrapped up in it.

Instead, they got their workout in and then went home with the knowledge that the coming days won’t be quite so relaxing.

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Nathan Denette / AP

Kobe's shot lifts Lakers

Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto

PBT: Kobe struggles, but beats Raptors with late jumper

  

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