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Wednesday night, the Lakers knocked off the Clippers in what was their 19th game of a lockout-shortened 66-game campaign. For those not doing the math at home, one month in the Lakers have already completed 29 percent of their schedule.

A lot of time? No, but by this season's standard not a bad sample size, either.

From a scheduling standpoint, Wednesday also marked a natural dividing line between the home-heavy start and what amounts to a national tour for the purple and gold, as 11 of their next 16 games come away from Staples Center. Put together, it makes for a natural moment to stop and assess what we know about this season's Lakers. When the lockout (tentatively) ended back on Nov. 26, we published a list of 34 questions facing the team this year in the wake of last spring's playoff disaster.

Why 34? Because 20 isn't enough when the league lets you sit around all summer thinking about stuff. Below is that list, each with some answers.

Strap in, people. We've got a lot of ground to cover.

1. Who wins the battle between the well-rested knee of Kobe Bryant (and his ankle, back, finger and general skeletal structure) and a compressed schedule?

Knee? What knee? I thought we were worried about his wrist. (Which, by the way, we’re increasingly less worried about.) Meaning 19 games in, the answer is Bryant in a walk. He leads the league in scoring (30.2), a nearly five-point improvement over last season, while maintaining a solid shooting percentage (45 percent). Asked to carry an almost comical burden in the Lakers offense, at least as measured by his league-leading usage rate (35.9), Bryant has been outstanding. And spry. Very, very spry.

Basically, the man is a running, leaping billboard for German medical engineering.

2. Who wins the battle between the well-rested will of Bryant and the authority of Mike Brown?

The relationship between Kobe and Brown has been a success. Bryant has expressed nothing but admiration for his new coach, praising on multiple occasions Brown’s work ethic and emphasis on defense, noting the team wants to win for him because they see how much Brown wants to win, too. They know he puts in the work.

Doesn't mean the questions about Bryant's shot selection, balance, or how he's used offensively have stopped, but those would be asked whether the coach was Brown, Phil Jackson, Brian Shaw or Rick Adelman. They are, in sports terms at least, eternal.

To this point, though, one major concern -- Brown's ability to "manage" Kobe, has been a non-issue.

3. What will Brown's system look like, and how quickly will the Lakers be able to pick it up?

Not totally sure, and not very.

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UPDATE (12:44 pm PT): ESPN.com's Ric Bucher reports Mike Brown will hire Jim Boylen, as well as Quin Snyder in some capacity. Scott Roth is expected to stay in Toronto to join Dwayne Casey's new staff with the Raptors. If Chuck Person accepts the offer to stay in Los Angeles, Bucher reports Brown's bench staff would be Boylen, Person, and former Pistons coach John Kuester, who ran Brown's offense in Cleveland. Snyder and Ettore Messina would be behind the bench, in consulting capacities.

Little is yet set in stone, but ESPNLA's Dave McMenamin reports the field has been narrowed considerably:

"Toronto Raptors assistant coach Scott Roth, Philadelphia 76ers player development coach Quin Snyder and former University of Utah head coach Jim Boylen are the three finalists for a position on the staff of new Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown, according to sources close to the situation. Roth and Snyder have already interviewed for the position, sources said, with Boylen scheduled to meet Monday with Brown.

Brown has already hired famed Italian coach Ettore Messina to serve as a coaching consultant and likewise intends to hire John Kuester, recently fired by the Detroit Pistons, to focus on the Lakers' offense as Kuester did when he coached under Brown in Cleveland. Chuck Person has also been offered the opportunity to join Brown's staff as the only holdover from Phil Jackson's coaching team. He coached with Brown in Indiana under then coach Rick Carlisle. Person also interviewed for one of the assistant coach positions under new Houston Rockets coach Kevin McHale. He is expected to make a decision on this future sometime this week, according to a source..."

The Lakers, McMenamin reports, are still very much interested in Dallas Mavericks special assistant Tim Grgurich, though prying him away from Carlisle's staff won't be easy. I suspect Mark Cuban would take a fair measure of joy in denying the Lakers an opportunity to fortify their efforts to dethrone his team.

A quick roundup of news impacting Mike Brown as he looks to fill out his staff:

• Chuck Person, the only realistic holdover candidate from last season's crop of assistants, met on consecutive days late last week with Brown, but as ESPNLA's Dave McMenamin reports, Person isn't putting his eggs in one basket. He's scheduled to interview with the Houston Rockets, hiring assistants to serve with new coach Kevin McHale.
• Via multiple reports, including Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, Mike Malone, who worked under Brown in Cleveland and was widely believed to be a serious candidate to join him in L.A., will instead be the lead assistant on Mark Jackson's new staff in Golden State. Malone is considered a top shelf defensive coach, helping transform the Hornets into a top tier team on that end of the floor this season. Should Malone do the same with the Warriors, he should bypass "next hot head coaching candidate" status and go straight to sainthood, because that would be a miracle.
• John Kuester, the architect of Brown's more productive offenses in Cleveland and recently canned as head coach of the Pistons, is seen as a very strong possibility to come to Los Angeles.

If you haven't had a chance to read the Q and A on Ettore Messina, added to Brown's staff in a consulting capacity, it's well worth the time. I suspect he wasn't brought across the pond just to do light office work, so his influence could be very important.

First things first: The Lakers are neither scared of, nor unaccustomed to, defending the pick and roll.

"Most teams see it as our weak point," Lakers assistant coach Chuck Person told me Monday after practice in El Segundo. "For instance, the second game we played in San Antonio, they ran 79 pick and rolls. So we know what that system is. We know [Hornets] Coach [Monty] Williams played in that system. He coached in it. I was his teammate in San Antonio. He went to Portland, and they run a lot of pick and rolls up there as well, so he carried it over to New Orleans."

"We knew coming in that we were going to face Chris Paul and the pick and roll," Person continued. "Over the course of this year when we played New Orleans, I don't think it was a concern. It's only a concern if you do things improperly, or out of the system that we determine is best [for us]."

You wouldn't know it based on Sunday's effort, but the Lakers are actually among the best in the league in defending the pick and roll. Via ESPN Stats and Information, when guarding the ball handler in P-and-R sets this season they ranked sixth in points per play and tied for fourth in adjusted field goal percentage. Against the roll man, again the Lakers were very good, ranking in the NBA's top five in both categories. Not Sunday. In Game 1, whether it was Chris Paul (1.5 points per play) or others (1.43 ppp, primarily fueled by Jarrett Jack), the Lakers essentially surrendered twice as many points per pick and roll as they did in the regular season.

Still, don't expect sweeping changes. As Kobe Bryant noted following Sunday's loss, the Lakers never gave themselves a chance. "We didn't do the coverages defensively that we were supposed to do. We just didn't do them. I don't know if we forgot about them, or if it was lack of effort to execute them, but we didn't stick to our game plan."

In Wednesday's Game 2, they aim to fix that. Among the points of emphasis:

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While I suspect most teams don't enter a game with the idea of giving away as many free throws as possible, over the last few seasons the Lakers have been very successful at playing defense without fouling, helping keep the opposition off the stripe. This year, though, the Lakers have turned it into an art form. As noted by SI.com's Zach Lowe, over their final nine games L.A. has a chance to become the least whistled team the league has ever seen.

How?

To gain more insight into how the Lakers do what they do, Thursday afternoon in El Segundo I tracked down assistant coaches Brian Shaw and Chuck Person (separately, though for the sake of continuity I'll put answers to similar questions together). Both emphasize how much attention goes into it from a teaching standpoint, particularly in practice. It can't hurt, too, having so many high IQ, experienced players on the same roster.

Q: As a team, the Lakers have been incredibly effective keeping other teams off the free throw line, to the point you might actually set a record. Is this a philosophical thing?

SHAW: We teach defend without fouling, but it makes it easier when you have big guys inside like Pau [Gasol], Andrew [Bynum], and Lamar [Odom] that we can constantly sandwich the offensive players. We’re chasing them over screens, they’re coming to close up the space, so they’re having to shoot over. Our big guys do a pretty good job of gauging blocking shots as opposed to just taking up space. And then fouling at the right times. Using our fouls when we’re not in the bonus. If they have an advantage on the break, fouling, so that they don’t get an easy basket, but they have to take the ball out [to the sidelines].

PERSON: It’s a system of play that we have that we protect one another when we’re beat off the dribble, that we don’t have to foul out of necessity because we are responsible for a man and a half. We are consistently doing it on a game-by-game basis. We’ve had some games where teams get away from us, but for the most part guys are locked in to what we’re trying to do defensively. It also helps that we are very efficient offensively, which makes teams take the ball out a lot and lets us set ourselves defensively...

...We move our feet really well, we keep teams out of the middle of the floor, and we show our hands on defense. Those are the rules. If you can show your hands on defense and play with your body, those are clean defensive plays. That’s allowable under the rules, and our guys are really catching on to what those rules are.

Q: Some teams- Utah for example- have a history of piling up fouls as part of their style of defending. Does an active belief in not fouling mean there are times when players have to concede a shot or points in the larger interest? Because a play might be too far gone?

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In business, it's common practice to give employees some stake in the company, whether through a bonus structure, stock, or another vehicle tying more directly their financial future to the future of the company, but also empowering them.

People give added weight to that which they own, and there's nothing like ownership to make a guy feel useful.

The same principle applies to the Lakers and Andrew Bynum. Since returning to the ranks of the Western Conference elite, his coaches have preached to their young center how, on a team filled with other stars and scoring talent, he could best help his team to a championship through defense and rebounding. It was a clear message with mixed results. Not that Bynum -- when available -- hasn't been a productive member of L.A.'s rotation, but only in fits and starts has he filled the mandate given to him by the coaches, and too often only in situations accompanied by an expanded role offensively. In last season's playoff run, Bynum earned respect from teammates, coaches and fans by playing injured, but he was still more tangential to the team's overall success. His presence, literally, mattered but Bynum wasn't a focal point.

Now, he is. Changes in L.A.'s defensive scheme have put Bynum in the center (no pun intended) of things, and since the All-Star break Bynum has been monumentally successful in the role. Chalk some of it up to increased health -- his surgically repaired knee may still be sore, but Bynum's mobility and hop have improved substantially -- and even more to psychology. The Lakers have empowered Bynum. "It made me feel like I could find a little bit of a niche on the squad and find where I’m supposed to be," he said of his featured role on defense.

He's been validated, as well. Over the Lakers' eight game winning streak heading into tonight's game against the Heat, Bynum has been able to see the practical effects of his work. He's getting rebounds on both sides of the floor, he's blocking shots. His teammates enthusiastically welcome him to the bench during timeouts and lineup changes, and after games his locker is surrounded by media, whether he scores six or 16. It isn't a question of going out and doing the little things that don't show up in a box score, where a guy like Matt Barnes thrives. There's nothing subtle about Bynum's play. It's all tangible.

For a 23-year old with great skill and a young player's desire to put the ball in the basket being asked to sacrifice for the greater good, these things matter.

Two great stories up today from around the Webosphere. First, ESPNLA.com's Dave McMenamin (that's @mcten to you and me) breaks down Chuck Person's front-and-center role in L.A.'s defensive improvement, ushering in the adjustments they've made on that side of the ball. He details the way Andrew Bynum has bought into the system, as well:

"But something changed for the sixth-year center when he approached Lakers head coach Phil Jackson to talk following a film session at the Lakers practice facility in El Segundo a couple weeks back.

"He felt he was inactive and he wasn't active enough and he needed to be more active on the defensive end," Jackson said before the Lakers practiced in Atlanta on Monday. "We didn't talk about the offense at all. I told him the difference between us being a good club and a great club is his presence on the floor defensively and rebounding. Andrew's a smart kid, he understands that."Lakers assistant coach Chuck Person sold Jackson on changing the team defense this season to keep Bynum in the lane on the defensive end, rather than amble out to the perimeter to help out guards contending with pick-and-rolls.

"He's a plug," Jackson said. "He's in there stopping penetration."

It's a great read, as is this post from Darius Soriano at Forum Blue and Gold, revisiting the signing of Steve Blake. While Soriano doesn't sugarcoat some of Blake's shortcomings, he makes an outstanding point about how his presence has changed the complexion of the second unit:

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I wanted to share my feature for ESPNLA.com about Ron Artest and the changes made in his life. The transformation of Ron's image never ceases to amaze me, and it's testament to the power of soul searching.

We talked for a while about what caused the mistakes in his past: Ego. Bad lifestyle choices. Selfishness. Immaturity. A desire to cling to his roots at all costs. Admitting the need for help and sticking with therapy has changed Artest's life, which is why he's become so involved with the mental health industry. Having lived through the struggle, he knows firsthand the importance of creating avenues for assistance, especially for young people. There is also perspective from Lamar Odom, Chuck Person, Danny Granger and David Stern.

Artest still views himself as an incomplete project, a man in "transition." The direction at the moment, however, couldn't be better.

Below is an excerpt:

"Just being able to see every situation clearly," says Artest of the benefits of therapy. "I'm not as quick to judge somebody. I'm not always as quick to say I'm right about something. I criticize myself a lot or just look at things from all angles. If something's going wrong or something I can't deal with, I'm trying to figure out a way where I can deal with it relaxed."

"The most stable person in the world needs someone to talk to," Odom says. "It's really happens a lot more than what people think, probably, as far as someone needing someone to talk to. It's very normal. The everyday person sometimes is not willing to admit it. It was good that he got some help. We all need to know what makes us tick."

That doesn't necessarily make going public any easier.

"I talked about it three years ago," Artest says. "I told people I was going through therapy and some people was like, 'What?' I was weird. It caught people off-guard. But I kinda knew, like, I knew people were gonna call me crazy, but I kind of thought that if I tell people about this, it can have an impact on certain people."

Last season, when he admitted to drinking Hennessy at halftime during his days as a Chicago Bull, most people treated it like another outrageous tale from Ron-Ron and missed his intention, which was to bring his mistake to light.

"I was very upset about that," Artest says. But he kept talking, thanking his therapist during the postgame news conference after the Lakers won the title, and appearing alongside Rep. Grace Napolitano to advocate for H.R. 2531, a measure to "provide access to school-based comprehensive mental health programs."

The more he speaks out for those without a voice, the more people can put a face to their own issues. The solidarity works in reverse, too. The more Artest talks about his own issues, the less self-conscious he becomes about having them.

In his own words, it makes him feel "normal."

"Because I'm not the only one," Artest explains. "The same way I don't want that kid [helped through his advocacy] to feel lonely, I know I'm not lonely in this problem. [Before] I felt like I was the only one going through what I was going through, but I'm not. It's like all those groups, those movements, and they feel like they're not alone. Whether it's race, or whether it's gender, or whether it's sexuality, everybody doesn't want to feel alone, you know?"

None of Monday's news regarding L.A.'s 2010-11 coaching staff is a surprise.

Frank Hamblen, Brian Shaw, and Jim Cleamons return as assistant coaches, joined this year in a full and official capacity by Chuck Person, who arrived in El Segundo during training camp last year and greatly impressed Phil Jackson. So this season, he'll remove the "special" from his assistant coach tag. Well deserved.

And, oh by the way, as Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLA.com reports, Jackson has quietly signed a contract for next season. Financial terms haven't been released, and given all that went on last season about the relationship between finances and Phil's return, the numbers will eventually constitute an interesting story. I realize, too, the business of the offseason isn't quite finished, not until there's a resolution to Shannon Brown's free agency (which may or may not influence the future of Sasha Vujacic with the Lakers).

But while there's still plenty of time before training camp begins and enough lean days between now and then to test the seemingly boundless limits of shrimp on a treadmill's ability to entertain and kill time, having adult supervision under contract to me officially turns the page on last year and pushes through the offseason transition.

It feels like "next year" has arrived.