Lakers Can't Handle Brooks

The Houston Rockets defeated the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night for a few different reasons. Their inability to stop Yao Ming and his never ending onslaught of offense, physical interior defense that clogged the lane and forced the Lakers to shoot low percentage jumpers and last but not least, Aaron Brooks. Los Angeles has a very good basketball team, but they're not impenetrable. Their front line, although vastly improved over last year, remains remarkably brittle, and their backcourt is even with Orlando's for worst still playing in the postseason. Derek Fisher is 34 years old and even though he's still a very reliable spot up shooter, defensively he simply can't stay in front of Houston's dynamic point guards. Head coach Phil Jackson really doesn't have too many other options to solve this little match up problem, with Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown not exactly eliciting memories of Jerry West and Gail Goodrich, the Zen master better cook something up or the Lakers could find themselves in trouble. A possible solution might be locking Brooks down with number 24, one of the best on ball defenders in the game, but that would eventually create other match-up problems.