Philly: You argued that there's not a big gap between Jared Dudley and Paul Pierce at this stage of their careers. Can you justify that?
Boston:Can your team win if Blake Griffin continues to neglect defense and doesn't add a jump shot? How big is the gap between Durant and Blake?
Lol what did Stern Say to Rome?
Seriously though. Blake had a defensive rating of 104. Better then the 107 he had the year before. I think he will continue to improve his individual defense and having the big fellow behind him. He is also in a lineup that is full of defensive minded and capable players in Gasol, Jack, Russ, and Artest.
Defense is contagious and I think part of the reason you saw his D improve is because the Clippers brought in more defensive minded personnel. Paul over Baron was big. Deandre over Kaman helped. Butler and Billups also understood the value of D.
The rest of my starters understand the value of defense too.
One big thing that I think is overlooked fro defense is defensive rebounding. We as Celtic fans know better then most that no matter how great you are defensively, if you don't rebound it doesn't matter. Defensive rebounding is part of defense and if you don't do it eventually the other team scores anyway. We lost a game 7 because in the finals bc of this.
Blake Griffin was 4th overall in the NBA in Defensive Rebounding. With Gasol on board it will be very difficult for teams to get offensive rebounds against Boston. I believe my team has the talent to play very good team defense and combing that with our rebounding I think we will limit teams to one shot per possession more often then not. I also think other team will not shoot high percentages against us.
Kevin Durant is superior to Griffin. He is on a higher tier that only him and Lebron (and maybe CP3) can call home. Blake Griffin along with Westbrook is on the tier below that. Griffin
and Westbrook are > then Kevin Durant.
So to answer. Yes. I believe we can win. We have an advantage inside that no other team can duplicate. We also have an elite playmaker on the wing. These guys are all 27 and younger capable of playing 38-40 minutes a night. They will constantly be on the floor attacking and overwhelming the opposition.
I think when you look at a team yo also have to look at their competition. Fact is there are only a handful of teams who can compete on the court with Boston's ability and talent.