Celtics Defense Looks Fine to Me

[ballin]

I completely disagree that Krstic has been better than Erden.

Erden contested/disrupted far more shots when he was on the court. When somebody goes at Krstic, he just fouls him and doesn't even attempt to contest the shot without fouling.

You can't play effective defense by sending the other team to the most efficient offensive spot on the floor: the free throw line.

[jimmywolfrey]

If the offense is missing shots and not being their usual efficient selves...then the other team will get easy buckets, gain confidence and play better.  

Part of our great defense is not giving up too many easy buckets based on our misses.  

[Tai]

I completely disagree that Krstic has been better than Erden.

Erden contested/disrupted far more shots when he was on the court. When somebody goes at Krstic, he just fouls him and doesn't even attempt to contest the shot without fouling.

You can't play effective defense by sending the other team to the most efficient offensive spot on the floor: the free throw line.

And lemme guess, the refs just didn't respect Erden enough? 

For the season: Krstic is averaging 2.6 fouls per game while Erden is at 2.5, and Krstic has played way more this season (60 to 38).

[Celtics18]

It's a set up, and then when this blog's pre-eminent posters start posting that he's just horrible on the defensive end, it gets picked up, and now it's "a fact."

 Our overall team defense has remained the best in the league since Krstic has joined the team. Curly's doing his job, in my opinion.

You could take a single game of any NBA player, and find specific examples to support an argument that he's a lousy defender. Everyone gets burned some time, but if your mind is made up that one guy is a lousy defender, you'll ignore his good defensive plays and magnify the bad ones.

Agreed, and TP.  I think that there is perhaps some selection bias going on, here, be it intentional or otherwise.


I'd like to take the opportunity to point out something related to this issue of defense, since it was brought up:  defensive rebounding.  I hate weasel wording, but it's not permitted to "call people out" specifically... so therefore, I'll say that I think that much ado has been made about Krstic's (lack of) rebounding on the defensive end, but the numbers thus far don't agree.

I think most would agree that team rebounding is what matters in the end.  Celts are #7 in the league this season in terms of grabbing defensive rebounds -- at 75.27% -- basically getting three of every four that goes up.  This is pretty good.  In the last 13 games that Krstic has played with the team, his poor performance on the defensive boards has dropped the Celtics to a 77.5% defensive rebounding rate, a figure so horrible that if we expanded it to the entire season it would put them at #1 in the league, ahead of the Magic.  Sorry, Dwight.

There's one stinker of a game in there, against the Warriors (team did not even manage to grab three of every five), but every other game is either reasonably close to or well above their season average.  And if we canned the GSW game, the C's are at a toasty 79% DRR.  Krstic was averaging more than half of every game on the floor, too, so it's not as if he didn't have plenty of opportunity to tank this team's numbers, no?

Nice post.  Those are encouraging numbers. 

[Megatron]

Krstic just sucks, he isnt what we need at Center.

What we need is a big, strong, bruiser and shot blocker, someone that isnt afraid to foul someone hard when they come through the lane, and someone that is good at protecting the paint and rim. Krstic doesent do any of those things.

Shaq and JO do.

Thats why those two are going to be key to winning a title.

And for all of those people who arent sold on JO.

JO on one gimp knee is better then Krstic defensively. If Krstic isnt providing any offense, he is a net negative. What does he bring? Nothing.

I repeat, JO on one leg is better then Krstic.

[mgent]

I think if JO can come back at 75% of what he was last year he'd be a better option coming off the bench with Baby than Krstic.

I don't even want to guess on the odds of that happening though.

I remember those happy naive days of the offseason where we were dreaming of TWO defensive powerhouses in JO and Perk backing up/closing games for Shaq.  Instead we've got Nenad.

[Kane3387]

I'd like to take the opportunity to point out something related to this issue of defense, since it was brought up:  defensive rebounding.  I hate weasel wording, but it's not permitted to "call people out" specifically... so therefore, I'll say that I think that much ado has been made about Krstic's (lack of) rebounding on the defensive end, but the numbers thus far don't agree.

I think most would agree that team rebounding is what matters in the end.  Celts are #7 in the league this season in terms of grabbing defensive rebounds -- at 75.27% -- basically getting three of every four that goes up.  This is pretty good.  In the last 13 games that Krstic has played with the team, his poor performance on the defensive boards has dropped the Celtics to a 77.5% defensive rebounding rate, a figure so horrible that if we expanded it to the entire season it would put them at #1 in the league, ahead of the Magic.  Sorry, Dwight.

There's one stinker of a game in there, against the Warriors (team did not even manage to grab three of every five), but every other game is either reasonably close to or well above their season average.  And if we canned the GSW game, the C's are at a toasty 79% DRR.  Krstic was averaging more than half of every game on the floor, too, so it's not as if he didn't have plenty of opportunity to tank this team's numbers, no?

Need some evidence to back up what you are saying.  A link, a screenshot, etc. Something. I believe you though, and that is why I am saying CHECK AND MATE on this argument.

It truthfully is all about the Team overall. Just like Defense and everything else we rebound as a team and if our numbers have gone up since we acquired the Thunder boys then what is there to complain about in regards to rebounding? We improved according to the quoted post above.

[Kane3387]

I think if JO can come back at 75% of what he was last year he'd be a better option coming off the bench with Baby than Krstic.

I don't even want to guess on the odds of that happening though.

I remember those happy naive days of the offseason where we were dreaming of TWO defensive powerhouses in JO and Perk backing up/closing games for Shaq.  Instead we've got Nenad

Yeah I hate injuries... It sucks. We should be going for a 4 peat right now if not for the knees of KG and Perk..

And don't tell me LA could say the same for Bynum's knees because when he was healthy in the playoffs in 2009 he sucked. He averaged like 6 points and 5 fouls a game. The only reason they won is because Yao got hurt, Denver couldn't inbound the ball in crunch time without a turnover, KG was hurt, and Courtney Lee cant hit alley oop layups (game 2) along with Dwight unable to hit fourth qtr clinching free throws (game 4).

LA really stands for Lucky A** H**es!!!

[Interceptor]

Need some evidence to back up what you are saying.  A link, a screenshot, etc. Something.

I pulled all of the numbers from Hoopdata.  It's very easy to sort teams by DRR for the season to get the Celtic's overall, and the team's DRR for each game is also available.  Since Krstic was only in the last 13 games, it was just 60 seconds worth of math after that.

The C's have some hot numbers in there:  the game against the 76er's has them getting 37 of 42 available defensive rebounds (88.1%), 11 of which went to Curly.

[Fafnir]

I'd like to take the opportunity to point out something related to this issue of defense, since it was brought up:  defensive rebounding.  I hate weasel wording, but it's not permitted to "call people out" specifically... so therefore, I'll say that I think that much ado has been made about Krstic's (lack of) rebounding on the defensive end, but the numbers thus far don't agree.

I think most would agree that team rebounding is what matters in the end.  Celts are #7 in the league this season in terms of grabbing defensive rebounds -- at 75.27% -- basically getting three of every four that goes up.  This is pretty good.  In the last 13 games that Krstic has played with the team, his poor performance on the defensive boards has dropped the Celtics to a 77.5% defensive rebounding rate, a figure so horrible that if we expanded it to the entire season it would put them at #1 in the league, ahead of the Magic.  Sorry, Dwight.

There's one stinker of a game in there, against the Warriors (team did not even manage to grab three of every five), but every other game is either reasonably close to or well above their season average.  And if we canned the GSW game, the C's are at a toasty 79% DRR.  Krstic was averaging more than half of every game on the floor, too, so it's not as if he didn't have plenty of opportunity to tank this team's numbers, no?

Need some evidence to back up what you are saying.  A link, a screenshot, etc. Something. I believe you though, and that is why I am saying CHECK AND MATE on this argument.

It truthfully is all about the Team overall. Just like Defense and everything else we rebound as a team and if our numbers have gone up since we acquired the Thunder boys then what is there to complain about in regards to rebounding? We improved according to the quoted post above.

Our team defense has declined from 99.9/per100 to 101.7/per100

That's a very big decline, hopefully its a blip though.

[Celtics18]

The Celtics play at a pretty slow pace, here are the defensive ratings for those recent games you highlight:

Philly  99.1
Bucks   64.6
NJ      103.9
Houston 106.7
NO      106.9
NY      98.5

Our season average is 99.9, these six games average out to 96.61. But that rating is hugely pulled down by the Bucks game where we set several records for defense. Take it out and you have 103.02. Now that's censoring the data, but I think its justified, the lowest scoring total in the shot clock era is an outlier.

If you expand the sample to the post trade set of games you get this:

Denver 95.8
LAC    102.5
Utah   105.5
Suns   109.8
GSW    115.3
Bucks  95.2
LAC    118.5
Philly  99.1
Bucks   64.6
NJ      103.9
Houston 106.7
NO      106.9
NY      98.5

Our average is 101.7 for the entire sample, that's not schedule adjusted but the number does show a noticable decline.

I'm confused by these numbers.  According to HoopsData, our defensive rating for the year is 97.5. That puts us second in the league just behind Chicago.  During the Krstic and Green era we have regressed slightly averaging a defensive rating of 98.4. However, that would still put us second in the league.  

I know that defensive ratings vary according to variations in formulas used.  I would love to know which site you used so I can compare.  

I'm guessing that no matter where we looked, we might find a slight decline from our overall season numbers over the past 13 games, but we'd still be statistically right near the top of the league defensively from a statistical standpoint.

[Celtics18]

I'd like to take the opportunity to point out something related to this issue of defense, since it was brought up:  defensive rebounding.  I hate weasel wording, but it's not permitted to "call people out" specifically... so therefore, I'll say that I think that much ado has been made about Krstic's (lack of) rebounding on the defensive end, but the numbers thus far don't agree.

I think most would agree that team rebounding is what matters in the end.  Celts are #7 in the league this season in terms of grabbing defensive rebounds -- at 75.27% -- basically getting three of every four that goes up.  This is pretty good.  In the last 13 games that Krstic has played with the team, his poor performance on the defensive boards has dropped the Celtics to a 77.5% defensive rebounding rate, a figure so horrible that if we expanded it to the entire season it would put them at #1 in the league, ahead of the Magic.  Sorry, Dwight.

There's one stinker of a game in there, against the Warriors (team did not even manage to grab three of every five), but every other game is either reasonably close to or well above their season average.  And if we canned the GSW game, the C's are at a toasty 79% DRR.  Krstic was averaging more than half of every game on the floor, too, so it's not as if he didn't have plenty of opportunity to tank this team's numbers, no?

Need some evidence to back up what you are saying.  A link, a screenshot, etc. Something. I believe you though, and that is why I am saying CHECK AND MATE on this argument.

It truthfully is all about the Team overall. Just like Defense and everything else we rebound as a team and if our numbers have gone up since we acquired the Thunder boys then what is there to complain about in regards to rebounding? We improved according to the quoted post above.

Our team defense has declined from 99.9/per100 to 101.7/per100

That's a very big decline, hopefully its a blip though.

I just posted a comment about those numbers while you were posting this.  What site are you using, (or are you doing your own math) and where does that 101.7 place us in comparison to the rest of the league?

[Chris]

I'd like to take the opportunity to point out something related to this issue of defense, since it was brought up:  defensive rebounding.  I hate weasel wording, but it's not permitted to "call people out" specifically... so therefore, I'll say that I think that much ado has been made about Krstic's (lack of) rebounding on the defensive end, but the numbers thus far don't agree.

I think most would agree that team rebounding is what matters in the end.  Celts are #7 in the league this season in terms of grabbing defensive rebounds -- at 75.27% -- basically getting three of every four that goes up.  This is pretty good.  In the last 13 games that Krstic has played with the team, his poor performance on the defensive boards has dropped the Celtics to a 77.5% defensive rebounding rate, a figure so horrible that if we expanded it to the entire season it would put them at #1 in the league, ahead of the Magic.  Sorry, Dwight.

There's one stinker of a game in there, against the Warriors (team did not even manage to grab three of every five), but every other game is either reasonably close to or well above their season average.  And if we canned the GSW game, the C's are at a toasty 79% DRR.  Krstic was averaging more than half of every game on the floor, too, so it's not as if he didn't have plenty of opportunity to tank this team's numbers, no?

Need some evidence to back up what you are saying.  A link, a screenshot, etc. Something. I believe you though, and that is why I am saying CHECK AND MATE on this argument.

It truthfully is all about the Team overall. Just like Defense and everything else we rebound as a team and if our numbers have gone up since we acquired the Thunder boys then what is there to complain about in regards to rebounding? We improved according to the quoted post above.

Our team defense has declined from 99.9/per100 to 101.7/per100

That's a very big decline, hopefully its a blip though.

I just posted a comment about those numbers while you were posting this.  What site are you using, (or are you doing your own mathe) and where does that 101.7 place us in comparison to the rest of the league?

I think the question is, how does that tell us anything beyond the team has been been playing well lately.  Which everyone can see with their eyes.  Frankly, I am surprised the numbers weren't even worse considering how poorly all of our starters have played defensively over the last few weeks.

[Fafnir]

The Celtics play at a pretty slow pace, here are the defensive ratings for those recent games you highlight:

Philly  99.1
Bucks   64.6
NJ      103.9
Houston 106.7
NO      106.9
NY      98.5

Our season average is 99.9, these six games average out to 96.61. But that rating is hugely pulled down by the Bucks game where we set several records for defense. Take it out and you have 103.02. Now that's censoring the data, but I think its justified, the lowest scoring total in the shot clock era is an outlier.

If you expand the sample to the post trade set of games you get this:

Denver 95.8
LAC    102.5
Utah   105.5
Suns   109.8
GSW    115.3
Bucks  95.2
LAC    118.5
Philly  99.1
Bucks   64.6
NJ      103.9
Houston 106.7
NO      106.9
NY      98.5

Our average is 101.7 for the entire sample, that's not schedule adjusted but the number does show a noticable decline.

I'm confused by these numbers.  According to HoopsData, our defensive rating for the year is 97.5. That puts us second in the league just behind Chicago.  During the Krstic and Green era we have regressed slightly averaging a defensive rating of 98.4. However, that would still put us second in the league.  

I know that defensive ratings vary according to variations in formulas used.  I would love to know which site you used so I can compare.  

I'm guessing that no matter where we looked, we might find a slight decline from our overall season numbers over the past 13 games, but we'd still be statistically right near the top of the league defensively from a statistical standpoint.

I'm using basketball reference's offense/defensive rating numbers. Individual games are from their advanced boxscores, from there I just averaged.

[Fafnir]

I'd like to take the opportunity to point out something related to this issue of defense, since it was brought up:  defensive rebounding.  I hate weasel wording, but it's not permitted to "call people out" specifically... so therefore, I'll say that I think that much ado has been made about Krstic's (lack of) rebounding on the defensive end, but the numbers thus far don't agree.

I think most would agree that team rebounding is what matters in the end.  Celts are #7 in the league this season in terms of grabbing defensive rebounds -- at 75.27% -- basically getting three of every four that goes up.  This is pretty good.  In the last 13 games that Krstic has played with the team, his poor performance on the defensive boards has dropped the Celtics to a 77.5% defensive rebounding rate, a figure so horrible that if we expanded it to the entire season it would put them at #1 in the league, ahead of the Magic.  Sorry, Dwight.

There's one stinker of a game in there, against the Warriors (team did not even manage to grab three of every five), but every other game is either reasonably close to or well above their season average.  And if we canned the GSW game, the C's are at a toasty 79% DRR.  Krstic was averaging more than half of every game on the floor, too, so it's not as if he didn't have plenty of opportunity to tank this team's numbers, no?

Need some evidence to back up what you are saying.  A link, a screenshot, etc. Something. I believe you though, and that is why I am saying CHECK AND MATE on this argument.

It truthfully is all about the Team overall. Just like Defense and everything else we rebound as a team and if our numbers have gone up since we acquired the Thunder boys then what is there to complain about in regards to rebounding? We improved according to the quoted post above.

Our team defense has declined from 99.9/per100 to 101.7/per100

That's a very big decline, hopefully its a blip though.

I just posted a comment about those numbers while you were posting this.  What site are you using, (or are you doing your own mathe) and where does that 101.7 place us in comparison to the rest of the league?

I think the question is, how does that tell us anything beyond the team has been been playing well lately.  Which everyone can see with their eyes.  Frankly, I am surprised the numbers weren't even worse considering how poorly all of our starters have played defensively over the last few weeks.

We've played the Bucks twice, once holding them to a shot clock era record low in points. If you were to remove that outlier the nubmers get a lot worse.

It doesn't tell us anything other than how the team has played with Krstic and Green. But isn't that exactly the information we're concerned with?