2008 Celtics Championship defense finally showed up! Who agrees with me?

[KG_ended_Bias]

This is the 1st time all season I saw that "IT" That championship defense we havent seen much of lately, but tonight in the last 5 minutes of that Wizards game I saw the hunger of rhat 08' team that really wanted to win a champiomship they had yet to discover. And tonight I saw Pierce, KG & Ray play and respond like they did in 08'. What a positive sign going forward & very encouraging. Maybe just maybe the great ones can turn it on when they want to!

[Greenbean]

I agree.

I prefer that they turn it "on" in the first and third quarters though. That way we'll be dealing with blowouts and Marcus Landry in the 4th.

That's what they did in 08 anyway.

[KG Fan]

It was nice to see defense, but I'm still not sure it was our defense that shut them down..their lack of a go-to scorer really screwed them down the stretch. Our defense contributed, yes, but if they had a Caron Butler/Gilbert Arenas they would have scored much easier.

Still nice to get a win like that. 

[Who]

It was nice to see defense, but I'm still not sure it was our defense that shut them down..their lack of a go-to scorer really screwed them down the stretch. Our defense contributed, yes, but if they had a Caron Butler/Gilbert Arenas they would have scored much easier.

Still nice to get a win like that. 

Agreed -- Good defense + incompetent offense = Wizards drought

Rather than excellent defense forcing very poor offense.

[Trifecta]

It was nice to see defense, but I'm still not sure it was our defense that shut them down..their lack of a go-to scorer really screwed them down the stretch. Our defense contributed, yes, but if they had a Caron Butler/Gilbert Arenas they would have scored much easier.

Still nice to get a win like that. 

They were going to Blatche all game long, he's their go-to guy, it just seemed that KG succeeded to get into his head. Blatche just couldn't get it together after KG started getting ticky-tacky with him.

[PosImpos]

It was nice to see defense, but I'm still not sure it was our defense that shut them down..their lack of a go-to scorer really screwed them down the stretch. Our defense contributed, yes, but if they had a Caron Butler/Gilbert Arenas they would have scored much easier.

Still nice to get a win like that. 

They were going to Blatche all game long, he's their go-to guy, it just seemed that KG succeeded to get into his head. Blatche just couldn't get it together after KG started getting ticky-tacky with him.

The fact that Andray Blatche - a career bench player up until a few weeks ago - is the Wizards' current go-to guy is exactly the point.

[Bahku]

This is the 1st time all season I saw that "IT" That championship defense we havent seen much of lately, but tonight in the last 5 minutes of that Wizards game I saw the hunger of rhat 08' team that really wanted to win a champiomship they had yet to discover. And tonight I saw Pierce, KG & Ray play and respond like they did in 08'. What a positive sign going forward & very encouraging. Maybe just maybe the great ones can turn it on when they want to!

Exactly (TP) ... this was a really ugly game that held some very positive things, in that they showed that they can buckle down and play defense again, when they want to. This was 3 1/2 quarters of just terrible basketball, followed by the Celtics doing what they had to in order to pull out the win. Some see more negative than positive in this one, but I don't agree. Putting it together after playing most of a game in horrendous fashion, is much harder to do than blowing a team out.

[Trifecta]

It was nice to see defense, but I'm still not sure it was our defense that shut them down..their lack of a go-to scorer really screwed them down the stretch. Our defense contributed, yes, but if they had a Caron Butler/Gilbert Arenas they would have scored much easier.

Still nice to get a win like that. 

They were going to Blatche all game long, he's their go-to guy, it just seemed that KG succeeded to get into his head. Blatche just couldn't get it together after KG started getting ticky-tacky with him.

The fact that Andray Blatche - a career bench player up until a few weeks ago - is the Wizards' current go-to guy is exactly the point.

Haha very true, but the fact that he was torching us the whole game even though he has been a career bench player is haunting as well.

[FallGuy]

This is the 1st time all season I saw that "IT" That championship defense we havent seen much of lately, but tonight in the last 5 minutes of that Wizards game I saw the hunger of rhat 08' team that really wanted to win a champiomship they had yet to discover. And tonight I saw Pierce, KG & Ray play and respond like they did in 08'. What a positive sign going forward & very encouraging. Maybe just maybe the great ones can turn it on when they want to!

Exactly (TP) ... this was a really ugly game that held some very positive things, in that they showed that they can buckle down and play defense again, when they want to. This was 3 1/2 quarters of just terrible basketball, followed by the Celtics doing what they had to in order to pull out the win. Some see more negative than positive in this one, but I don't agree. Putting it together after playing most of a game in horrendous fashion, is much harder to do than blowing a team out.

The problem, if past is prologue, is that they'll learn nothing from it. And we'll be back in the same pattern beginning, oh, next game. Losing eminently winnable games. And looking for more silver linings.

[Bahku]

This is the 1st time all season I saw that "IT" That championship defense we havent seen much of lately, but tonight in the last 5 minutes of that Wizards game I saw the hunger of rhat 08' team that really wanted to win a champiomship they had yet to discover. And tonight I saw Pierce, KG & Ray play and respond like they did in 08'. What a positive sign going forward & very encouraging. Maybe just maybe the great ones can turn it on when they want to!

Exactly (TP) ... this was a really ugly game that held some very positive things, in that they showed that they can buckle down and play defense again, when they want to. This was 3 1/2 quarters of just terrible basketball, followed by the Celtics doing what they had to in order to pull out the win. Some see more negative than positive in this one, but I don't agree. Putting it together after playing most of a game in horrendous fashion, is much harder to do than blowing a team out.

The problem, if past is prologue, is that they'll learn nothing from it. And we'll be back in the same pattern beginning, oh, next game. Losing eminently winnable games. And looking for more silver linings.

That's exactly what I think the difference is between now and before the break ... we were consistently losing these games prior to the All Stars, but we've now found the way to turn them around. Just don't see this as "half-empty" as many here seem to. I think we have a great home-stretch to look forward to.

[FallGuy]

This is the 1st time all season I saw that "IT" That championship defense we havent seen much of lately, but tonight in the last 5 minutes of that Wizards game I saw the hunger of rhat 08' team that really wanted to win a champiomship they had yet to discover. And tonight I saw Pierce, KG & Ray play and respond like they did in 08'. What a positive sign going forward & very encouraging. Maybe just maybe the great ones can turn it on when they want to!

Exactly (TP) ... this was a really ugly game that held some very positive things, in that they showed that they can buckle down and play defense again, when they want to. This was 3 1/2 quarters of just terrible basketball, followed by the Celtics doing what they had to in order to pull out the win. Some see more negative than positive in this one, but I don't agree. Putting it together after playing most of a game in horrendous fashion, is much harder to do than blowing a team out.

The problem, if past is prologue, is that they'll learn nothing from it. And we'll be back in the same pattern beginning, oh, next game. Losing eminently winnable games. And looking for more silver linings.

That's exactly what I think the difference is between now and before the break ... we were consistently losing these games prior to the All Stars, but we've now found the way to turn them around. Just don't see this as "half-empty" as many here seem to. I think we have a great home-stretch to look forward to.

But the real progress I think we need to see before the playoffs is a streak of games (4, 5, 6 - something like that) where they play the full 48 and win. It's not just about pulling out games against bad teams at the last second. Which is, sadly, actually an improvement over the pre-all-star break Celtics.

[Bahku]

This is the 1st time all season I saw that "IT" That championship defense we havent seen much of lately, but tonight in the last 5 minutes of that Wizards game I saw the hunger of rhat 08' team that really wanted to win a champiomship they had yet to discover. And tonight I saw Pierce, KG & Ray play and respond like they did in 08'. What a positive sign going forward & very encouraging. Maybe just maybe the great ones can turn it on when they want to!

Exactly (TP) ... this was a really ugly game that held some very positive things, in that they showed that they can buckle down and play defense again, when they want to. This was 3 1/2 quarters of just terrible basketball, followed by the Celtics doing what they had to in order to pull out the win. Some see more negative than positive in this one, but I don't agree. Putting it together after playing most of a game in horrendous fashion, is much harder to do than blowing a team out.

The problem, if past is prologue, is that they'll learn nothing from it. And we'll be back in the same pattern beginning, oh, next game. Losing eminently winnable games. And looking for more silver linings.

That's exactly what I think the difference is between now and before the break ... we were consistently losing these games prior to the All Stars, but we've now found the way to turn them around. Just don't see this as "half-empty" as many here seem to. I think we have a great home-stretch to look forward to.

But the real progress I think we need to see before the playoffs is a streak of games (4, 5, 6 - something like that) where they play the full 48 and win. It's not just about pulling out games against bad teams at the last second. Which is, sadly, actually an improvement over the pre-all-star break Celtics.

Oh, I absolutely agree, but I think we've begun to see more of that, and we finally blew a team out for a change recently. But the hardest games to win are the ones when you suck for the greater portion, and yet still find a way to win ... if you can find a way to win when you're playing badly, then the good games just become that much easier. I think we're seeing many more positive signs than we are negative, and I truly believe that this final home-stretch to the post-season will be one of continued and progressive improvement. As it stands we're 8/3 since the break and have won four-in-a-row, average win-margin is 7.77 with two twenty-plus blowouts ... not bad. (TP for the good discussion)

[Greenbean]

It was nice to see defense, but I'm still not sure it was our defense that shut them down..their lack of a go-to scorer really screwed them down the stretch. Our defense contributed, yes, but if they had a Caron Butler/Gilbert Arenas they would have scored much easier.

Still nice to get a win like that. 

Agreed -- Good defense + incompetent offense = Wizards drought

Rather than excellent defense forcing very poor offense.

I would just say that when they turned the defensive intensity up, they outscored Washington 20 to 4 in crunch time.

If they were a good offensive team would they doubl, triple that output? Even so the Celts would have outscored their opponent playing the kind of defense they were playing.

It was visibly excellent IMO.

[moiso]

Shutting down a d league quality team for a few minutes doesn't impress me.  We are playing nowhere near championship level defense.

[Tai]

I think our offense almost lost us this game rather than our D. I mean, we didn't allow 20 points in 2 quarters; the 2nd, and then the 4th, which everyone remembers. Overall, we only allowed 83 points against the Wizards; in a league where the worst offensive team is averaging 90.6 points per game (Nets, go figure), we won't lose a lot of games if we allow that many points on a consistent basis. Also, considering the fact that the Bobcats only scored 80 points against us and the Sixers only scored 86 before this game, HOPEFULLY this is the start of a trend.

Now, lemme  backtrack. I said our offense almost lost us this game. Guys, we only scored 38 points in the 1st half. We were on pace to not even score 80....thank god we did get 80+ though, right? But yeah, our bench brought virtually nothing on the offensive end, which I think is really rare for them. KG, has you know, didn't even get a FG, something he hasn't done since his rookie year. Really?

To answer the topic's question, I think our defense is definitely on it's way back, and I think our emotion (see Paul and KG topic) is back too. We could use less games where we have to comeback in the final minutes, but like I said, if teams are gonna have a hard time putting up 90 points against us, we can't ask for THAT much more defensively; it can always be better, but we need just as good an offense, a balance.