Real "anchor" of your defense?

[Finn Man]

Hello Boston fans! Who do you think is more vital for your defense, Perkins or Garnett?
Perkins has been really impressive in a few games I´ve seen, but people are saying KG is a DPOY- candidate. Thank you for answers in advance!

[Joselo16]

A 100% KG is the better overall and he is the heart of the D (if not the team), but this years he's been a little slow on rotations and players aren't afraid of him and attack him as opposed to in the past. Perk has always been a great post defender and has great IQ when it comes to rotations and there is a noticeable difference when he goes to the bench, at least for me since Sheed has had his holiday season pounds since training camp. They are both important cogs in our defensive system and both make each other better, but to me Perk has been a more constant force.

[UGA Hayes]

Honestly I don't think its ever bee clear cut. Mediawise KG gets the lions share of the credit, but if you asked me which guy we would be worse off without on the defenseive end I think it perk.

[Harison]

Remove KG and Celtics defense would be Top10 at best (as we have seen last season), remove Perk and Celtics would remain somewhere in the Top. Check advanced stats, KG + ANY big (Perkins, Baby, Powe) produced pretty much the same overall D, while ANY combo of bigs without KG had huge negative impact (like +10 PPG allowed).

Its true KG isnt 100% yet, age and injuries have its impact (not nearly as bad as impact on Duncans defense..), but still he orchestrating defense like maestro, Perk as good as is individual defender, have much lesser impact on overall defense.

[SonicYouth34]

Perk is the better man-up defender, but KG is the best team defender in the league. I say KG makes the team's D the best, but Perk allows KG to be the kind of defender he is best at.

[Joselo16]

Not to criticize the guy cause I'm a huge KG fan and I thinks he's still hurting from the injury(mentally of physically), but to me Garnett's defense is based more on rep more than anything as with everything else in the NBA (granted he has earned the rep). Garnett is great, but let a guy like Perk do some of the pull some of the things does and he will foul out in the first quarter. We see it now to a certain extent with Perk setting the same picks and he gets called for fouls like 80% of the time. They both serve their respective roles on the team with Garnett guarding the quick forwards while Perk guards the physical guys down low, they complete each other!

[Scalamental]

I respect Perks game, gloat about it even, but KG -with all cylinders pumping- is the smartest team and 1 on 1 defender we have. Perk is especially useful against big guys like Howard and Shaq, but nothing compared to what KG can do, working up and down on a string.

What you can say is, the team's not as affective when Perk's out and likewise when KG's out. They work well together. But KG FTW.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I agree with everybody else, Perkins is a beast man defender but KG is a great team defender but KG isn't what he used to be but KG is still every bit as dangerous defensively as his T-Wolves days but if you take KG out of the lineup Perkins is still gonna make the team a great defensive team but if you take KG out of the lineup Perkins isnt going to be as good as he would be normally

[irie]

Perkins is the defensive anchor this year. We'll see if it goes back to KG once if he gets back to 100% healthy but anything less than that and I say Perkins is our team's defensive anchor.

[tombattor]

Perk plays a heck of a D and has become a very important piece to our defense. However, KG is the one makes everyone accountable on defense. Maybe individually Perk has played D as well as KG, but KG's effect on D goes beyond just himself.

[Banks2Pierce]

It's kind of weird because the key to our team defense is having TWO anchors on the court at once. I think this is why we signed Wallace. He really is a help at the rim and will understand more later on in the season. When KG was out last spring, our defense wasn't very good at all. Teams were consistently scoring 100+ on us. Thibodeau's D works great when there are 2 rocks behind the guards because they can gamble constantly and get beat and still be all right. I think Thibs even encourages this.

So, Perk is a better Man defender I'd say. KG is the better team defender.

[Pogue Mahone]

It's kind of weird because the key to our team defense is having TWO anchors on the court at once. I think this is why we signed Wallace. He really is a help at the rim and will understand more later on in the season. When KG was out last spring, our defense wasn't very good at all. Teams were consistently scoring 100+ on us. Thibodeau's D works great when there are 2 rocks behind the guards because they can gamble constantly and get beat and still be all right. I think Thibs even encourages this.

So, Perk is a better Man defender I'd say. KG is the better team defender.

Exactly to the part in bold.

BTW, too many give credit to Thibodeau but this is essentially the same defense that Doc has always run. His early time in Boston, he just had crap players to play defense (Gomes, Jefferson, Szczerbiak, etc.)

[sully00]

Perkins is the "anchor" of the defense. I am not going to slight KG I love him and I think that he is great defensively, but much like with Rondo, Perkins allows these guys to put up the fancy defensive measures. Yeah I guess KG is better at picking up and pressuring a PG but last I checked Perk played center. Is Perk better? I don't know about that but he certainly does what nobody else can or at least does. He can body up anyone in the league one on one in the post, deny them the spot, and block the shot and do it with the game on the line. He can dominate the defensive glass and lets face it he can slap the taste out your mouth. Love it or hate it that is an aspect of what the Boston Celtics and their defense is about. He is the banger, the intimidator, the guy who puts the other teams' heads on a swivel, frankly we are bunch of talkers outside of Perk and TA.

[Zin5]

KG is the better overall defender and he leads the defense, but Perk is the anchor and has for the past few years. KG's a great help defender, but Perk down low is the reason our defense never has to collapse on a single player. He allows guys like Rondo to gamble on the perimeter in order to force turnovers.

[RondoWallace]

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[tombattor]

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Hm... I wonder if you think Perk is better than KG on defense...

[drza]

It's not about reputation and it's not about hype, Garnett has very clearly been the anchor of this defense his entire time in Boston and he still is today even as he works through the injury.

Re: last year, the circumstances alligned for it to be absurdly obvious how huge of a difference KG and Perk make to the team defense. Because of injuries each got to play large numbers of minutes with the starting unit (Rondo/Allen/Pierce) and a second big (Baby, Powe, Scal, etc.). And KG was quite obviously the key to the defense. A few in this thread have referenced that, but they've actually underestimated it...KG wasn't worth 10 points on defense when compared to Perk, he was worth 17 points to the team defense with respect to Perk. Perk's crew gave up 111 points/100 possessions vs KG's crew giving up 94 points/100 possessions with the exact same teammates. Again, this wasn't a subtle difference.

As for why that is, some in this thread have hinted at it already. As 1-on-1 defenders Perk is better than Garnett at defending huge post-oriented big men that rely upon their strength to score (i.e. Howard, current Shaq). But there aren't many centers like that in the NBA, and against everyone else Garnett is the better 1-on-1 defender. Garnett is also the much better help defender, even in his current state, because he covers more ground and helps make what would have been high percentage mid-range shots low-percentage shots. And the third part of being an anchor, orchestrating the team D as the quarterback of the unit, is another Garnett easy victory in this comp.

Perk is a great young defensive center, and his contributions to the unit should definitely not be understated. But even when slowed by a rehabbing knee, if KG can get on the court he is clearly the better defensive anchor.

[sully00]

drza

Your numbers are funky, what "large number of mins" could there be, Perk started 76 games last season. Just based on the top 5 man units they played together for 1165 min and Garnett played with another big for 254 mins. I don't know what your comparing but unless your going to tell me you think we are a better defensive team with Scal and KG at the 4/5 the numbers your using are not that relevant to the overall point.

The team and Perkins are obviously better with Kevin Garnett on the floor in absolutely every aspect of the game but the opposite is also true. Sure when another team lacks a low post presence of any significance Perkins importance is diminished no doubt. What good team doesn't have a low post presence? In a lot of ways Garnett's impact is exaggerated against bad teams, especially teams without a physical low post player. Garnett is certainly the catalyst to the defense and flat out one of the best all around players ever, and he is why we are good defensively sure but I think Perkins is what makes a us great.

[drza]

drza

Your numbers are funky, what "large number of mins" could there be, Perk started 76 games last season. Just based on the top 5 man units they played together for 1165 min and Garnett played with another big for 254 mins. I don't know what your comparing but unless your going to tell me you think we are a better defensive team with Scal and KG at the 4/5 the numbers your using are not that relevant to the overall point.

My numbers of minutes pretty much agree with yours. Garnett played 1074 minutes with Rondo/Allen/Pierce and Perk. As a unit they gave up 98 points/100 possessions.

Garnett played 254 minutes with Rondo/Allen/Pierce and (Baby, Powe or Scal as the 5th). As a unit they gave up 94 points/100 possessions.

Perkins played 554 minutes with Rondo/Allen/Pierce and (Baby, Powe, Scal or Moore as the 5th). As a unity they gave up 111 points/100 possessions.

Statistically speaking, 94 points vs 98 points for these numbers of minutes is in the noise. In other words, I doubt you could statistically argue that the defenses with Garnett and not Perk were any better than the defenses with Garnett and Perk...essentially, those two situations would probably measure out as equally good defensive units given the numbers of minutes played and the unknowns.

111 points vs 94 points, on the other hand, is not in the noise. That is a large, wonking huge difference between the same units exchanging only KG and Perk. It would definitely be statistically significant. The take home is that given those defensive teammates it was very clearly Garnett, and not Perkins, that made the defense elite.

The team and Perkins are obviously better with Kevin Garnett on the floor in absolutely every aspect of the game but the opposite is also true. Sure when another team lacks a low post presence of any significance Perkins importance is diminished no doubt. What good team doesn't have a low post presence? In a lot of ways Garnett's impact is exaggerated against bad teams, especially teams without a physical low post player. Garnett is certainly the catalyst to the defense and flat out one of the best all around players ever, and he is why we are good defensively sure but I think Perkins is what makes a us great.

My point wasn't that teams don't have low post presences. My point was that few teams have low post presences with the size/strength ratio of a Howard or Shaq. KG is an excellent low-post defender against players as big as Duncan, even occasionally against Yao. It is the 7-foot, 280+ pound explosive or massively strong beast types where I would say that Perk is the better 1-on-1 defensive option and there aren't a whole lot of them floating around.

KG and Perk definitely have a beneficial effect on each other, the same way that all of the starters do. The team is best served when all of them are on the court together. But if you remove Perk from the team and keep KG you still get one of the best defenses in the league. If you keep Perk but remove KG the defense drops from elite to average at best (if not below par). The advanced stats from 2008 and thus far this season would have suggested this to be true, but the 2009 season where we actually got to see that experiment play out proved it about as definitively as is reasonably possible in a game as complex as basketball.

[sully00]

But if you remove Perk from the team and keep KG you still get one of the best defenses in the league. If you keep Perk but remove KG the defense drops from elite to average at best (if not below par). The advanced stats from 2008 and thus far this season would have suggested this to be true, but the 2009 season where we actually got to see that experiment play out proved it about as definitively as is reasonably possible in a game as complex as basketball.

This is were the "statistical evidence" crap gets under the nails with me. There is no "evidence" you are using numbers that are situational, not starter or rotational mins, and mean nothing unless you believe that a defensive frontcourt with Scalabrine playing the 4 and KG 5 is better than KG and Perk. Do you? If no then the stat doesn't mean what you are saying stop using it that way. Just because someone puts numbers on a chart it doesn't mean it is a fact.

This idea that we have seen KG without Perk for a long period like we saw Perk have to go without KG is nonsense Perk missed 6 starts last year including back to backs with the Nets and Craptors.

Like I said I am not trying to knock KG I love him and think he is great I just think this idea that comparing Perk shouldering the load with KG playing what amounts to 4 mpg with other bigs as evidence that he is the singular difference maker is silly business. KG is a beast you have no reason to apologize for feeling he is the man I just have a problem with this idea of reading off numbers from a chart without relating it to reality.