A tribute to the best defense in basketball

[zoyathedestroya]

The first two games were without Rob. Imagine if we had a rim protector and someone who gobbled up misses.

[djFan71]

The first two games were without Rob. Imagine if we had a rim protector and someone who gobbled up misses.

You're allowed to grab it when the other teams misses? That would have been good to know early tonight.

[zoyathedestroya]

The first two games were without Rob. Imagine if we had a rim protector and someone who gobbled up misses.

You're allowed to grab it when the other teams misses? That would have been good to know early tonight.

Team did a better job gang rebounding in the 2nd half. Theis was getting manhandled inside. He can box out but can't jump at the same time to clean up. We ended up equal in the boards column after trailing double digits in the 1st half.

[djFan71]

The first two games were without Rob. Imagine if we had a rim protector and someone who gobbled up misses.

You're allowed to grab it when the other teams misses? That would have been good to know early tonight.

Team did a better job gang rebounding in the 2nd half. Theis was getting manhandled inside. He can box out but can't jump at the same time to clean up. We ended up equal in the boards column after trailing double digits in the 1st half.

Definitely. That's what i meant by "early" - early in game / 1st half. Their guards rebounding the long misses still drove me crazy in the 2nd, too, lol, but we were much improved.

[zoyathedestroya]

You're allowed to grab it when the other teams misses? That would have been good to know early tonight.

Team did a better job gang rebounding in the 2nd half. Theis was getting manhandled inside. He can box out but can't jump at the same time to clean up. We ended up equal in the boards column after trailing double digits in the 1st half.

Definitely. That's what i meant by "early" - early in game / 1st half. Their guards rebounding the long misses still drove me crazy in the 2nd, too, lol, but we were much improved.

I think they even hit three 3s off orebs and loose balls. Those were demoralizing to mortal, basic teams. But Cs just kept coming lol.

[Smart2Nesmith43]

Boston’s defense continues to force the Nets to take mostly terribly difficult field goal attempts. The Nets’ shot quality in Game 2—or their expected effective field goal percentage, based on factors like shot location and defender distance—was just 44.7 percent, according to Second Spectrum. That’s the worst single-game figure for any team in the playoffs since the Spurs in the 2018-19 first round.

The Nets didn’t see much better looks in Game 1, either. Their overall shot quality against the Celtics this round is just 46.8 percent, the lowest for any team in these playoffs. In the regular season, for context, no team in the league had a shot quality below 50 percent.

Shot quality doesn’t necessarily dictate results like it did in the early days of 3s-and-layups optimization, and the Nets, with all their pinpoint midrange shooters, are a prime example of how teams can overcome such poor distribution. Their actual eFG% in this series is 56.8 percent, 10 ticks higher than expectation.

But at such extremes, the math advantage really matters—and on the other end, the Celtics’ offense has a shot quality of 55.7 percent through two games. That’s the highest figure for any team in the postseason, and it’s higher than any team’s regular-season mark, too.

https://www.theringer.com/2022/4/21/23035300/celtics-nets-defense-nba-playoffs

With the numbers of shot makers the Nets have, it's pretty much expected that they'd overperform their shot quality percentages but this is extreme. If they regress even a little to the mean, the Celtics are going to be in a good place.

[zoyathedestroya]

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[zoyathedestroya]

Other than Pritchard, the eight guys in our rotation have somewhere between 6'8" and 7'5" wingspan.

[zoyathedestroya]

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[GWVan]

I feel like the Celtics being a dominant team over the next few years could change the league. Imagine if every teams stars played defense the way ours do? The end of the Harden era of basketball could be upon us.

[zoyathedestroya]

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[Smart2Nesmith43]

I feel like the Celtics being a dominant team over the next few years could change the league. Imagine if every teams stars played defense the way ours do? The end of the Harden era of basketball could be upon us.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. The number one advantage of a switching defense is killing off ball movement and forcing the other team to go iso all the time. Harden is or was (depending on how you feel about his current decline) an elite isolation scorer. For all the talk of his playoff failures, his Rockets team basically were the only team besides LeBron's Cavs to consistently take games off the dynasty Warriors who also employed a switch-heavy scheme.

[Marvel]

And people were saying defense doesn't matter as much anymore.

[Darthlukey]

I feel like the Celtics being a dominant team over the next few years could change the league. Imagine if every teams stars played defense the way ours do? The end of the Harden era of basketball could be upon us.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. The number one advantage of a switching defense is killing off ball movement and forcing the other team to go iso all the time. Harden is or was (depending on how you feel about his current decline) an elite isolation scorer. For all the talk of his playoff failures, his Rockets team basically were the only team besides LeBron's Cavs to consistently take games off the dynasty Warriors who also employed a switch-heavy scheme.

Maybe they meant star players not playing defence at a high level?

[GWVan]

I feel like the Celtics being a dominant team over the next few years could change the league. Imagine if every teams stars played defense the way ours do? The end of the Harden era of basketball could be upon us.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. The number one advantage of a switching defense is killing off ball movement and forcing the other team to go iso all the time. Harden is or was (depending on how you feel about his current decline) an elite isolation scorer. For all the talk of his playoff failures, his Rockets team basically were the only team besides LeBron's Cavs to consistently take games off the dynasty Warriors who also employed a switch-heavy scheme.

The Celtics duo committing to defense makes it hard for the Nets duo to score, but KD and Kyrie's lack of commitment to defense means Brown and Tatum are going to score enough to come out on top. Any star player should be a two way player.

[Smart2Nesmith43]

I feel like the Celtics being a dominant team over the next few years could change the league. Imagine if every teams stars played defense the way ours do? The end of the Harden era of basketball could be upon us.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. The number one advantage of a switching defense is killing off ball movement and forcing the other team to go iso all the time. Harden is or was (depending on how you feel about his current decline) an elite isolation scorer. For all the talk of his playoff failures, his Rockets team basically were the only team besides LeBron's Cavs to consistently take games off the dynasty Warriors who also employed a switch-heavy scheme.

The Celtics duo committing to defense makes it hard for the Nets duo to score, but KD and Kyrie's lack of commitment to defense means Brown and Tatum are going to score enough to come out on top. Any star player should be a two way player.

A bit harsh to lump KD with Kyrie there. He's shown he's able and willing to play defense at a high level on numerous occasions. He can provide excellent weak side rim protection as a helper in the right scheme (like when he was Warriors). Fortunately the Celtics don't have to worry about that with this Nets team. I think Durant is just struggling to carry that load on both defense and offense and he's focusing on the end of the floor where he can make the biggest impact. The days of him playing 48 minutes game after game like he did against the Bucks last year are probably over. He's not exactly young anymore.

No arguments about the value of two way stars from me. At the end of the day, the Iversons and Anthonys win scoring titles but the Duncans and Russells win actual titles.

[zoyathedestroya]

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[Smart2Nesmith43]

Portis' minutes per game in this series: 32, 26, 26, 15. Budenholzer is clearly going smaller as the series goes on to try to jumpstart their offense. The Celtics have been outstanding in the halfcourt throughout and held up even in game 4 without Timelord.