Another mediocre team, another poor defensive display and another first half deficit. Question for all the "don't worry" guys out there tonight. Just when this year should we expect this team to really start playing defense?
Celtics played excellent defense at the start of the season + still rank 2nd best in the league in defensive efficiency + played excellent defense against the Magic a couple of games ago.
This year's team has already shown their defensive chomps. They're just in a rut at the moment.
And to answer your question, speaking for myself, I'd have to see the Celtics sub-par defensive efforts for a large portion of the season (say a third) before I was anywhere near convinced that we won't see the Celtics elite defense return at a later time.