Brad rips the team after the loss - "We're a 'finesse' (AKA soft) team."

[LooseCannon]

You cannot produce good defense with most of your best defenders out of the lineup and replaced by rookies, inexperience and poor replacements.  Having an expectation that this team would produce anything but a lousy defense without Horford, Olynyk, Crowder and Smart missing the 1st 3 games is crazy talk.  Brad knows this and is just trying to survive this and motivate the players he currently has available.  A big man rotation of Horford/Olynyk/Amir/Jerebko will be excellent and very likely produce a defensive rating well below 100.  Olynyk will be back tonight and is light years better than people give him credit for.

The rotation in the first three games was Horford/Amir/Zeller/Jerebko, and it produced a DRTG well north of 110. You think 20-25 min of Kelly Olynyk is worth 10+ DRTG on its own?

Heck, his individual DRTG last season (as irrelevant as the stat may be) was ~103. If nothing else, this gives you an idea of the order of magnitude of team defense with Olynyk on the floor.

Well first off, that stat is interesting. Chris Forsberg has a different number: https://twitter.com/ESPNForsberg/status/796442467809820681

Secondly, Zeller is pretty bad dude. Removing him alone should help the defensive numbers a bit. Give Horford some more reps and more unity/chemistry with the starters, and i honestly dont think it's that outlandish to see a major improvement of the defensive rating.

ESPN.com and basketball-reference.com give different numbers due to calculating possessions differently.

Olynyk probably has a good defensive rating under Brad Stevens because he is good at being where he is supposed to be on the floor.  If you were looking at possible big men acquisitions, you'd probably want to avoid players who are consistently late on defensive rotations unless you have reason to believe they will improve.  Thinking that the player is young so can still learn would not be sufficient reason.  A hoss rebounder who is a poor help defender will be a candidate to take over Jordan Mickey's minutes, not a potential starter.

[The Oracle]

You cannot produce good defense with most of your best defenders out of the lineup and replaced by rookies, inexperience and poor replacements.  Having an expectation that this team would produce anything but a lousy defense without Horford, Olynyk, Crowder and Smart missing the 1st 3 games is crazy talk.  Brad knows this and is just trying to survive this and motivate the players he currently has available.  A big man rotation of Horford/Olynyk/Amir/Jerebko will be excellent and very likely produce a defensive rating well below 100.  Olynyk will be back tonight and is light years better than people give him credit for.

The rotation in the first three games was Horford/Amir/Zeller/Jerebko, and it produced a DRTG well north of 110. You think 20-25 min of Kelly Olynyk is worth 10+ DRTG on its own?

Heck, his individual DRTG last season (as irrelevant as the stat may be) was ~103. If nothing else, this gives you an idea of the order of magnitude of team defense with Olynyk on the floor.

That def. rat. is a junk statistic used by Basketball reference and has zero statistical value.  The C's with Olynyk on the floor had a team best among all regular rotation players def. rat. of 97.7.  Below some pairings from last year.

                          def. rat.
Olynyk/Jerebko      92.8
Olynyk/Amir          97.8
Jerebko/Amir         96.2

Horford had a def. rat. of 98.2 last year and so far this year has a def. rat. of 91.4 with Amir in a small sample of 39 minutes.  Olynyk/horford should be a very good defensive pairing and quite possibly one of the very best in the entire league.  All 4 players should be fairly interchangeable defensively and produce an excellent defense sharing the floor with the likes of Crowder, Smart and Bradley.

[The Oracle]

Some Olynyk stats for people to consider.  The guy busts his butt when on the floor and gets zero recognition.

Post all star beak in 14-15 season Olynyk had a def. rat. of 91.1 in 445 minutes, while in 1058 minutes without him the C's had a def. rat of 104.1.

Last year the C's had a def. rat of 97.7 in 1395 minutes with Olynyk on the floor, while have a def. rat. of 102.6 in 2561 minutes without him.

Last year Celtics opponents had their lowest FG% when Olynyk was on the floor 42.5%.  They also had their worst 3 point percentage 31.9%.

I have not ran all the numbers on this but I believe Olynyk led the league last year in shots defended per minute played, defending .483 shots per minute.

Here is the numbers of how the C's defended with Olynyk on the floor last year. 

Restricted area 59.9% (this is a very average number)
In the paint non restricted area 33.6% (this is best in the entire league among centers)
Mid-range 37.5% (this is an excellent number)
3 point line 31.9% (this is an excellent number)

[CelticsJG]

Everybody soft except for KOs