None of his answers were more succinct than when Bryant was asked to grade the Lakers' defense against the Boston Celtics during Sunday's 109-96 defeat at Staples Center.

"F," Bryant said.

"Well, we didn't execute well," Bryant said. "We blew too many assignments."

Enough to allow the Celtics to rip holes in the Lakers' up-and-down defense.

Enough to allow the Celtics to make a whopping 60.3% of their shots against the back-to-back NBA champion Lakers.

When Lamar Odom was told how well the Celtics shot, he replied with a question.

"How much?" Odom asked, raising his eyebrows.

Um, 60.3%, Odom was told again.

""Whew!" said Odom, shaking his head. "Sixty! They are too good to let them shot 60% from the field. You should expect to lose to the Boston Celtics if you let them shot 60%."

So what if Odom was off by 0.3.

He made his point.

And then there was Boston's three-point shooting against the Lakers.

The Celtics burned LA's exterior defense, making 52.9% (nine for 17) of their three-point shots.

Boston didn't shoot less than 50% from the field in any quarter.

The Celtics shot 68.8% from the field in the third quarter.

And they were just getting warmed up.

The Celtics blitzed the Lakers' defense in the fourth, making a scorching 70% (14 for 20) of their shots.

He had 20 points and five steals that night against Boston, enough for Lakers Coach Phil Jackson to call him the Game 7 most valuable player because "he brought life to our team, he brought life to the crowd."

There was even a "Ron Ar-test, Ron Ar-test" chant, Lakers fans pumping him up while Kobe Bryant staggered to a six-for-24 shooting effort.

His defense was shoddy against Paul Pierce and he made a numbing one of 10 shots, scoring only three points in almost 24 minutes. For the second consecutive game, he did not get off the bench in the fourth quarter.

Artest was signed to a five-year, $34-million contract in July 2009 specifically to shut down players such as Pierce.

Pierce had 32 points on 11-for-18 shooting, including three of five from three-point range Sunday.

"He played really good. He really gave it to me," Artest said. "He gave it to me last year in the regular season too."

In that Game 7 last June, Artest limited Pierce to 18 points on five-for-15 shooting.

But Artest was so askew Sunday that Jackson was asked whether the 12-year veteran got lost on the way to the game.

"No, he was on time. He got lost on the court," Jackson retorted.

Jackson noticed Artest's problems right away against Pierce — "What did he get, nine points right off the bat?" — and Artest never re-entered the game after leaving with 1:56 left in the third quarter.

Jackson chose his words carefully when asked about it, cognizant that Artest yelled at him during a practice this month because Jackson continually criticized him to reporters and in front of teammates.

"Ron took a couple shots that I thought were, like, perhaps not in the context of what we were trying to do," Jackson said. "I thought maybe we'd go another direction."

Artest said he was slowed after getting kneed in the right thigh on a first-quarter drive by Shaquille O'Neal.

"I wasn't able to continue to take [Pierce] and be aggressive," Artest said.

Artest, however, wasn't disappointed that Bryant gave the team an "F" grade for its defense against Boston. He took the optimistic approach.

"I got 'F's in elementary school," Artest said, "and I still went to college."

Not much dialogue

The season that won't straighten out continued to lurch and roll uneasily for the Lakers, who fell to the Boston Celtics, 109-96, Sunday at Staples Center, the latest indication that the defending champs are having trouble defending . . . and scoring . . . and sharing the ball . . . and just about everything else.

Kobe Bryant gave the Lakers an "F" for a defense that yielded a 59-point second half, a one-sided Celtics burst written in black ink on the whiteboard in the Lakers' locker room.

The Lakers had a pathetic 10 assists, six fewer than Celtics guard Rajon Rondo, and their fans grumpily filed en masse for the exits during a timeout with 1:29 to play, the Celtics up 14.

The big picture continued to look bleak for the Lakers (33-15), now on a 3-4 skid while falling to the fifth-best record in the NBA. They are 1-4 against the teams ahead of them — Boston, Miami, San Antonio and Chicago.

"I think guys are just upset probably. They should be," Bryant said. "We're not playing very well against these top teams. So we need to elevate our level and we need to get better if we're to defend our throne."

Bryant had 41 points on 16-for-29 shooting, though he failed in his attempt to carry the Lakers to victory. At one point in the fourth quarter, he took shots on 10 consecutive possessions, and an 11th was ended by his offensive foul. He had 11 points on five-for-11 shooting in the quarter.

He was the only Lakers player to take a shot from when Pau Gasol missed a 10-footer with 7:20 to play until Gasol's missed tip with 1:44 to play.

Lakers Coach Phil Jackson pointed the finger not at Bryant, but his teammates.

"I didn't think anybody else wanted the ball," Jackson said. "We did run a couple other things to get people in position but I thought those times he had the best opportunities. A lot of times, it didn't look like we were running anything out there offensively.

"I think sometimes we fold into ourselves and let him have too much space out there at times."

The Celtics (36-11) came into the game as the NBA's top-shooting team, showing 49.9% accuracy, but they kicked it up a level Sunday. It was especially obvious against a Lakers team that couldn't seem to hit anything.

Artest made one of 10 shots and sat out the entire fourth quarter. Derek Fisher made one of six shots. Gasol had 12 points on five-for-13 shooting.

Bryant was irritated by the loss, but Jackson was more light-hearted, telling a reporter that the games didn't really count until the playoffs and also facetiously pointing out that the Lakers did one thing well.

"I think the only good defensive job we did out there was on Shaq," he said. O'Neal was scoreless in almost 13 minutes while battling foul trouble throughout the game.

Making matter worse for the Lakers: Boston was coming off a mystifying 88-71 loss in Phoenix in which Kevin Garnett and Celtics Coach Doc Rivers were ejected.

Garnett clearly outplayed Gasol on Sunday, finishing with 18 points on nine-for-12 shooting, 13 rebounds and five assists.

Pierce, however, was the bigger machine for the Celtics, ripping through Artest's defense from the start and making 11 of 18 shots.

"It's definitely an emotional game especially since losing Game 7 here," Pierce said. "It's a big game just knowing that we can come into this building and get a win."

Bryant was unstoppable in the first half, scoring 22 points on eight-for-11 shooting as the Lakers took a 54-50 lead. It would have been larger but Lamar Odom fouled Glen Davis on a halfcourt shot as time expired, allowing the Celtics forward to shoot three free throws, two of which he made.

The Lakers regressed in the third quarter, Pierce carving them up with 14 points and making all three of his three-point attempts. The Lakers entered the fourth down, 77-72, and moved within four with 5:20 to play before fading badly.

They wore throwback uniforms from the 1971-72 season, which ended with a championship victory against New York, but their effort Sunday wasn't reminiscent at all of their title-worthy performance last June against Boston.

"We have to get better," Bryant said. "There's no other option but that. You've just got to continue to work at it and work at it and work at it until you're at the championship level."

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

twitter.com/Mike_Bresnahan

(Yawn)

OK, how are we doing in the West?

SAN ANTONIO?

We better get to work!

Everywhere else, the dog days run from the trade deadline, the week after the All-Star break, to April 1.

In Lakerdom, they start on Christmas and have lasted as long as the second round of the playoffs, as in the 2009 debacle, er, series against Houston.

In a handy lesson, the Lakers were on their way to winning a title in 2009, all appearances to the contrary.

All appearances to the contrary, they weren't dethroned Sunday when the Boston Celtics walked all over them in a 109-96 object lesson in who's whom in the pecking order.

We're talking humiliation … Celtics fans chanting "Beat L.A.!" … Celtics fan Matt Damon and friends yukking it up courtside between the Lakers' bench and superfan Norm Pattiz.

Happily for the Lakers, their world couldn't end Sunday.

It says so on the NBA schedule:

Tuesday — Houston.

Thursday — San Antonio.

Saturday — at New Orleans.

As Coach Phil Jackson said when asked about losing to all the good teams, smiling beatifically:

"Is it the playoffs yet?

"... We're playing regular-season games. We'll get there in time."

Not to worry. The gang's back together Sunday for a refresher course on essential basketball at Staples Center, the Lakers taking on the Boston Celtics for the first time since that excruciatingly tense Game 7 in last season's NBA Finals.

If it seems like an eternity since that game, it's understandable, more than seven months having passed since Ron Artest carried the Lakers with 20 points, Pau Gasol shredded the Celtics with 19 points and 18 rebounds, and Kobe Bryant made only six of 24 shots as the Lakers somehow rebounded from a 13-point third-quarter deficit to win, 83-79.

"I agree," Bryant said. "It was a tough one for sure, having to come back the way that we did and taking it from them the way that we did."

Fast forward to now, and neither team tore apart the league coming into Sunday, the Lakers losing at home Friday to woeful Sacramento while the Celtics tripped and fell in Phoenix.

The Celtics (35-11) have a few skeletons in their schedule, becoming one of the teams that actually lost to eight-win Cleveland and also dropping games to Detroit, Toronto and Washington.

The Lakers (33-14) have also had well-documented issues against good teams (Miami, Dallas, San Antonio) and sub-.500 ones (Milwaukee, Indiana, Sacramento, Memphis).

Coach Phil Jackson kept the Lakers for almost three hours at Saturday's practice, reviewing their latest clunker and also showing video clips of their 89-67 victory in Game 6 against the Celtics last June.

They were stellar defensively in that game, unlike Friday against Sacramento, which was Jackson's point entirely. He said he wanted to remind the Lakers of the "animation and the activity level" they had in the NBA Finals "as opposed to the activity and the level we were playing at [Friday] night."

It registered, presumably, during Saturday's video session.

"Yeah. It was long, right?" guard Derek Fisher said. "We normally like to cover good and bad things from the previous game before moving on to our next opponent. Because we were so bad [Friday] night, it took us a lot longer to get through the things we needed to cover."

The Lakers fell behind the Kings by 20 points, something they couldn't dream of doing against the Celtics if they expected to win.

Boston is only getting stronger, welcoming back beefy center Kendrick Perkins last week from off-season knee surgery. Kevin Garnett has had a solid bounce-back season after averaging only 14.3 points last season, his lowest since his rookie year, and Rajon Rondo is averaging an NBA-best 12.5 assists a game.

Said Fisher: "They're going to play hard, they're going to defend, they're going to help each other, they're going to share the ball on offense and very rarely are they going to beat themselves."

He's wearing green

Shaquille O'Neal is with his sixth team in a 19-year career, though there doesn't seem to be much animosity among the Lakers with his choice to join their arch-rivals last July.

"I don't think it's too weird," Bryant said. "I don't really hold too much significance to the fact that he's playing for the Celtics. Nor should I think Lakers fans as a whole."

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

twitter.com/Mike_Bresnahan

There was the loss to the lowly Sacramento Kings on Friday night. There was the loss to a Dallas Mavericks team that had lost six games in a row. And there was the loss to the Clippers in which the Lakers blew a big lead.

Also in that six-game stretch were victories over Utah, Denver and Oklahoma City, three probable playoff teams.

They will try to recapture some consistency Sunday at Staples Center against the Boston Celtics in a rematch of the NBA Finals.

"We've been up and down," Jackson said after practice Saturday. "We had a little run. I thought maybe we could make another little run in this homestand, but we're struggling a little bit."

Jackson said "we know why" the Lakers have been struggling.

"We're turning the ball over at inopportune moments," Jackson said. "We're not executing our offense very well. Transition defense, as a result, is not very good."

Maybe, it was suggested to Jackson, his team has slipped some in its play because the Lakers are coming off consecutive championships.

"We know that," Jackson said. "We know that sustaining that pace is going to be difficult. We know we have to get back on it, though. We have to get back on that horse and get going."

It won't be an easy ride for the Lakers.

They play four games this week, starting with a Celtics team that the Lakers beat in seven games last June.

They also face the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday at home. All the Spurs have done is post the best record in the NBA.

The Lakers then begin a seven-game, 12-day trip in New Orleans, and will have stops in such venues at Boston, New York and Orlando, all teams with records above .500.

"I think that our players have to be better students of the opponents that they are playing," Jackson said. "I think that [Sunday] they will have a lot of attention. Whether they play well or not is debatable, but they [the Celtics] do have the attention of the Lakers."

There doesn't seem to be much concern from the players.

They admit that they can play more consistent basketball, but they also think they aren't that far off course.

"We're not in as bad of a spot as it seems," Derek Fisher said. "But because of the expectations that we've set for ourselves and the accountability that we place on ourselves, it just doesn't feel great. But to be 33-14 and trying to accomplish what we've set out to accomplish hasn't been done in recent memory."

The Lakers are trying to win a third consecutive NBA championship.

Fisher and Kobe Bryant were a part of the last team that accomplished that feat, the 2000-2002 Lakers.

"We're not in that bad of a spot," Fisher said. "Because of how good we know we can be and how other people feel that we can be, we're harder on ourselves at times than maybe we even should be.

"But that comes with being a champion. You're never comfortable. You never feel good about where you are, even when sometimes you're not that bad off."

broderick.turner@latimes.com

twitter.com/BA_Turner

You missed him when he put on the red, white and black in Miami.

You may have lost track when he was the Big Cactus in Phoenix before donning wine and gold in Cleveland, where he was going to "win a ring for the King."

Et tu, Shaquille?

Yes, Shaquille O'Neal is a Boston Celtic, even it it's not the way it was, as a role player in the shadow of the Big Three, bound for the bench as soon as Kendrick Perkins is in shape.

Worse, these people are particular about who can be a Celtic.

In 1976, Celtic Nation almost seceded when Red Auerbach brought in Sidney Wicks.

Bob McAdoo, another pariah, er, acquisition not strictly in the tradition of Bill Russell, sulked through his stay in 1979 — 20 games — sleeping on teammate Cedric Maxwell's couch.

Of course, Wicks was from UCLA and McAdoo wound up a Laker.

In other words, anyone from Southern California, or who looked as if he'd fit here, was the devil.

Then there's Shaq, a Laker for eight seasons, a Celtic for three months and their new most popular player.

At 38, Still Shaq After All These Years, he pretended to be a statue in Harvard Square amid thrilled onlookers, pigeons and gathering TV crews.

Then he donned a tuxedo to conduct the Boston Pops.

Now, it's the Kennedys, clam chowder, Ted Williams, Bobby Orr, Larry Bird and Shaq.

"I didn't realize people in Boston were so nice," O'Neal said last week with the Celtics on their way to Los Angeles.

"I used to get booed. People would talk trash. It's been great."

As far as this rivalry of rivalries goes, who could ask for anything more?

Can you imagine Kobe Bryant pretending he doesn't care about these Celtics?