I think Rondo's defensive effort has been the exact same. He just has Tyson Chandler standing behind him now instead of Sullinger, Olynyk, Bass.
I don't know. I'm seeing an effort change not necessarily defensive efficiency or anything. He HARDLY EVER tried fighting through screens in Boston; tonight he's much more active and trying to get around them.
I'm not watching the game, so take this for what it's worth, but what I saw from Rondo in Boston was that he was trying reasonably well to fight over and our bigs were just too immobile to perform correct coverage. If your team philosophy is to go over screens, it is imperative that your bigs give quick and solid hedges. Too often Sully and Oly would just give the guards 3 feet to work with, and I saw Kelly a few games ago try to hard hedge and literally run past the ball handler. No matter how hard a player tries or how fast they are, everyone needs the second P&R defender to impede the ball handler. That's partly why KG was so great- remember his hard hedges right in the middle of the lane? That was underrated.
I think this also explains AB's defensive "regression." He's not getting teh few extra seconds to get in front of guys and thus cannot get as far into their grills.