Lakers’ victory is not too sunny

It’s difficult to find fault in a team that’s 18-3.

The Lakers made it easy to criticize them Wednesday after they needed a fourth-quarter rally to scratch out a 115-110 victory over the Phoenix Suns and avoid their first back-to-back losses of the season.

They have allowed at least 100 points in five of their last six games after allowing at least 100 in only four of their first 15 games. Still, they have the best record in the West and third-best record in the NBA.

Which matters most -- their record or their performance?

“The record is great,” Andrew Bynum said, “but the way we’re playing, we’re not going to beat the good teams.”

Phoenix was a depleted team Wednesday at Staples Center, with only nine players dressed and eight healthy bodies available.

Shaquille O’Neal -- who has yet to face the Lakers in Los Angeles as a member of the Suns -- was absent while he attended his grandmother’s funeral, and the excitement he would have generated was sorely missed. Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley, acquired by Phoenix from Charlotte earlier in the day for Raja Bell, Boris Diaw and Sean Singletary, hadn’t reported.

Despite the manpower deficiency, the Suns pushed the Lakers hard enough to take the lead for the first time in the third quarter, at 75-74, on Steve Nash’s first field goal of the game.

“We’re OK. We’re OK,” Kobe Bryant said when asked if he was happy with the team’s state.

But no more than that.

“We obviously want to get better defensively,” he said. “That’s a big key for us.”

When the Suns put together a 15-6 run early in the third quarter, the 18,997 fans at Staples Center expected the worst. They had seen the porous defense the Lakers had been playing in the fourth quarter lately, and they feared a repeat of Tuesday’s loss at Sacramento.

The Lakers held on, with Bryant scoring seven points in the last 6 1/2 minutes. Pau Gasol led all scorers with 28 points while Bynum scored 17 points (but only five in the second half) and pulled down 11 rebounds, and everyone went out happy into the night.

But this was not a completely happy ending.

The Lakers are by far the class of the West, and the biggest challenge for Coach Phil Jackson may be simply to keep them interested until the playoffs arrive. O’Neal’s absence deprived them of a rare highlight to their schedule -- the next game worth looking forward to is against the Celtics at home on Christmas Day.

“It’s a long season,” Sasha Vujacic said. “We’re in December right now and hopefully we’ll be going to June.”

How deep into June is up to them.

Luke Walton, a surprise starter in place of Vladimir Radmanovic -- the first time Jackson changed his starting lineup this season -- said the team is putting more emphasis on performance than placement.

“But one thing we learned last year is how important home court is in the playoffs,” said Walton, who finished with eight points and six assists.

“So even though the main concern is being a better team at the end of the year than we are right now, we can’t afford slipups because we want to have the best record in the NBA.”

They won’t have it without a better and more consistent defense. He believes they can get there.

“Hopefully by the playoffs we have everything figured out,” he said.

And maybe not.

Derek Fisher and Jordan Farmar are having trouble stopping people and the defense as a whole has been anything but cohesive.

They know it, but the Lakers still let the Suns hang around too long and shoot too well (50.6%). Jackson said the Suns “brought out the best in us,” and made the Lakers play. “Maybe not the best but we had to play well enough to win,” he said.

Well enough to win now, in December. Probably not well enough to win in June. That’s what this is all about. Not facing the Suns in December but playing for the title.

Bynum knows it, and that’s why he was disgusted with himself after the Sacramento game, saying he had been outrun by Brad Miller too many times and it shouldn’t have happened.

“We’ve got to do a better job on our end,” Vujacic said.

The rest of the season need not be meaningless if the Lakers use it to find ways to clamp down defensively. Then, and only then, will they give themselves the best chance to play deep into June.

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helene.elliott@latimes.com