Coming into last night’s game at Staples Center in Los Angeles, the two-time defending NBA champion Lakers were receiving a lot of critics around the league for not being the championship caliber team they used to be on the defensive end of the floor.

Lakers legend Jerry West turned out to be the most critical of his former team as he said the defending champs’ age was starting to catch up with them. With an average age of 30 and 10 players over at or over that age, the Lakers aren’t getting any younger, but if there is something that this time thrives on it is criticism like this and people doubting their ability.

Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher were asked about Jerry West’s comments and said that they weren’t going to say anything negative about the Lakers legend that brought both of them to LA as rookies, but that they were still the third best team in the league defensively.

On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers proved that they are still a force to be reckoned with on the defensive side of the basketball floor as they dominated Deron Williams and the Utah Jazz from start to finish with some lockdown defense and potent offense.

Heading into halftime, the Lakers were dominating on both ends of the floor as they were able to hold the Jazz offense to just 38 points while putting up 66 points of their own.

In the second half, it was more of the same for the Los Angeles Lakers as they continued to get the best of Jerry Sloan’s squad. No matter what the Jazz tried to do against the Lakers, they just couldn’t play consistently well and ultimately lost their fifth game in a row.

Kobe Bryant finished with a game-high 21 points and sat out the entire fourth quarter. Lamar Odom took over in the fourth as he put on a show with 17 points off the bench and helped maintain the Lakers lead as they cruised to a 120-91 victory.

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