The Lakers' DEFENSIVE funnel vision

Kurt Rambis' pizza is getting cold.

It's been sitting there, sausage, mushrooms and mozzarella, all but ignored because the Lakers' defensive coach is on a roll.

The black ballpoint pen is flying as Rambis draws up defensive schemes, scrawling out Xs and O's on the wax paper that covers a table at an Italian bistro.

He talks about steals, blocked shots and overloading one side of the court. He emphasizes the necessity to jump into passing lanes to intercept skip passes. He talks and draws, and then, finally, he eats. His work is done . . . at least on paper.

It was a given that the Lakers would score gobs of points this season, but Coach Phil Jackson wanted to put a stop to all the points being dropped on them (the team's defensive rank last season: 18th).

So Jackson gathered his coaches before training camp and told them he was appointing a defensive coach, something he hadn't done in his previous 18 years of coaching in the NBA.

"We didn't want to announce it and make a big deal about it like Boston did with their guy," Jackson said. "But Kurt is real good at this and he's willing."

Ah, yes. Boston.

The Celtics' defensive coach, Tom Thibodeau, made numerous headlines for his shut-it-down success last season, creating a template for championship-caliber teams via an unforgiving defense.

The Lakers could have used such a thing in the Finals, when the Celtics ended the Lakers' fairy tale by crushing them with Paul Pierce's slow, methodical, back-'em-down-the-lane style.

It has created a slow burn in the Lakers for, oh, about 164 days since their 131-92 humiliation in Game 6 of the Finals.

The Lakers began working on the new defense during training camp and continue to practice it almost every day. The results have been a boon.

The Lakers (12-1) are third in the league in opponents' shooting percentage (42.2%), sixth in points given up (92.7 a game), and first in point differential (14.3 a game).

The players have eaten it up, finding an appetite for steals (a league-best 10.4 a game) and blocked shots (6.2 a game, sixth-best in the league) that matches their zest for alley-oop dunks and three-on-one breaks.

"The thought process is that you want to win a championship. In order to beat a Boston, you've got to be a better defensive team than Boston," Kobe Bryant said. "If you want to hoist that trophy at the end of the year, we've got to be a great defensive team. That's the only way to get it done."