What in the world is going on with this defense?

[Spicoli]

Can someone who understands X's and O's please explain to me why guys like Sexton and LeVert are having career nights against this defense. I see that Stevens is not employing any double teams or traps no matter how hot the player is but how are these players able to get into the paint at will? Is this a design flaw in the defense? This has me worried. Ish Smith, Buddy Hield, Jamal Murray, Devin Booker did the same as well.

What is the defensive philosophy being employed? To concede the midrange?

[footey]

I don't have a good answer for Caris Lavert.  We have the personnel to stop him.

We often struggle against super quick point guards like Sexton, going back to last season.  Maybe a healthy Kemba would have helped, although not sure.  Achilles heal of Marcus Smart; will keep him from being named defensive player of the year (sorry, Marcus, you're not).  Waters did the best against Sexton on the perimeter, but often got switched out by the Nets offense picks.

Worth noting that in both cases, we were very short handed when these guys went off on us.

[csfansince60s]

I don't have a good answer for Caris Lavert.  We have the personnel to stop him.

We often struggle against super quick point guards like Sexton, going back to last season.  Maybe a healthy Kemba would have helped, although not sure.  Achilles heal of Marcus Smart; will keep him from being named defensive player of the year (sorry, Marcus, you're not).  Waters did the best against Sexton on the perimeter, but often got switched out by the Nets offense picks.

Worth noting that in both cases, we were very short handed when these guys went off on us.

Right on point here, foot!

It’s funny, some guys are just Celtics killers and seem to have their best games against us: Lou Williams, Jamal Murray, Sexton, LeVert, Devin Booker, Fournier, Reddick, Patty Mills....thorns in our side, all.

[Monkhouse]

No, it makes perfect sense to me.

I wouldn't be worried about it at all. Brad has mentioned many times in post game press conferences that our defensive system is based on switching, and that in turn leads to points for guards or shooters.

Sexton/LeVert were beating bigs off the dribble, and LeVert was feasting on Smart. But Smart generally isn't the greatest at shutting down speedy guards with quick first steps. He's really good at forcing them to take tough shots or deliberately force a turnover.

Ultimately, most of the games where players would score 30+ against us, 60% of the time they are taking tough contested shots, which I'm 100% okay with. Now our defense game plans around forcing guards or other players to take inefficient shots, like mid range, or step back tough fadeaways, (Sexton took like 7 of these, and made at least most of them) but again, as I said before, I'm 100% okay with that.

In today's league with all the rules and hand-checking, anyone that has a decent jumpshot, and ability to play PnR can probably get at least 15-20 PPG. I'm talking about decent, not like players with high ceiling or potential or MVP caliber like Harden/Westbrook. I mean January was one of our worst defensive months statistically, because we didn't trust each other, and kept helping out instead of forcing tough shots/closing on shooters. We gave up a lot of wide open kick outs and open layups. So I trust Brad will make the right adjustments in the playoffs.

EDIT: Don't let the Brooklyn Nets fool you into thinking our defense wasn't good. We were missing key players, and Tatum, (one of our best elite defenders,) was out of the game. The Nets got smoked last night by the Grizzlies. And we were just fresh off on a b2b.

We're still ranked 4th in defensive rating.