The best way to defend Nozick's ideas is to read Anarchy, State and Utopia. Consider what is involved in maintaining so-called "patterns": restrictions on exchange, restrictions on differences in ability, forcing the productive to subsidize the nonproductive etc. Not very much in the way of liberty, now is it?
Jan Narveson offers better arguments than Nozick though: http://www.againstpolitics.com/libertarianism/index.html