Please explain Celtics' defensive decline

[guava_wrench]

I think this could hurt us a lot in the playoffs. We are 8th in team pt differential due to a lot of success on offense. There is good reason to be skeptical that we can have similar success on offense in the playoffs. Considering how important IT is to our offense and how bad he is on defense, I have concerns.

I find comments about "effort" to be cheap and unsubstantiated. Every team goes there when they lose, which is silly because if every teams gives full effort, half the teams playing every day will still lose and blame effort. It is lazy analysis. The idea that defense is mostly effort is a myth. Speed, quickness, strength, coordination, and the ability to make split second reactions are not just in-game effort.

[nickagneta]

I think this could hurt us a lot in the playoffs. We are 8th in team pt differential due to a lot of success on offense. There is good reason to be skeptical that we can have similar success on offense in the playoffs. Considering how important IT is to our offense and how bad he is on defense, I have concerns.

I find comments about "effort" to be cheap and unsubstantiated. Every team goes there when they lose, which is silly because if every teams gives full effort, half the teams playing every day will still lose and blame effort. It is lazy analysis. The idea that defense is mostly effort is a myth. Speed, quickness, strength, coordination, and the ability to make split second reactions are not just in-game effort.

Both Brad Stevens and multiple players have come out and said that the team had to give better effort on the defensive end on many occassions. If the coach and team say that effort has been a problem I don't see how analyzing that effort has been a problem is cheap or unsubstantiated. Effort might not be the only reason, but it is definitely a reason for bad defense. Any coach and player in just about any sport will tell you that.

[straightouttabahstun]

People stepped up their offensive game, therefore the defense suffered because you need SOME offensive firepower outside of IT to win games. I expect to see us play tougher d in the playoffs. I think they are reserving the effort for the bigger stage to avoid fatigue/injuries

[CoachBo]

I think this could hurt us a lot in the playoffs. We are 8th in team pt differential due to a lot of success on offense. There is good reason to be skeptical that we can have similar success on offense in the playoffs. Considering how important IT is to our offense and how bad he is on defense, I have concerns.

I find comments about "effort" to be cheap and unsubstantiated. Every team goes there when they lose, which is silly because if every teams gives full effort, half the teams playing every day will still lose and blame effort. It is lazy analysis. The idea that defense is mostly effort is a myth. Speed, quickness, strength, coordination, and the ability to make split second reactions are not just in-game effort.

Both Brad Stevens and multiple players have come out and said that the team had to give better effort on the defensive end on many occassions. If the coach and team say that effort has been a problem I don't see how analyzing that effort has been a problem is cheap or unsubstantiated. Effort might not be the only reason, but it is definitely a reason for bad defense. Any coach and player in just about any sport will tell you that.

True. You can visit any coaches' convention in the country and they'll laugh uproariously at the assertion that defensive effort is a "cheap" or "unsubstantiated" excuse.

[Csfan1984]

From the C's side.
-Their fouls are down which shows less aggression. And you can just watch the games far less hacking and physical play. Last year when they were rated higher on D I kept pointing at the fouls. It effects the pace and game dynamics. The best teams are often higher up on the fouls but there is a tipping point. Too many fouls and it can be bad defense too little and it's probably not a team playing physical.
-Injuries missing your best defenders a good portion of the year.
-The rotation players are straight up terrible defenders at times.

Now let's also look at other teams.
-There are more teams spreading the C's out. Also there is far less ISO and a lot more pick and roll this year. The  C's Ice and rotation has been way off from timing to showing to recovery. Especially against two athletic players that execute.
-More games we are seeing SF/PF types playing PF which the C's can't match up with think Aminu  going off the other day. Yet a traditional team like Jazz with two old school bigs gets handled till C's let a late surge happen. Sure they could move Crowder to PF to deal with those types but without a healthy team C's just haven't had the chance to.

That's just some of the stuff I've noticed there is surely more.

[Tr1boy]

IT4 is the problem...but IT4 also has been the solution on the offensive  end

thus for our explanation of defensive decline but offensive incline

[MBunge]

The suggestion that the Boston Celtics don't play defense anymore implies that Stevens is incompetent, that he has lost control of his team and that he doesn't study the same stats we as fans have access to.

This site had Boston ranked #4 last season in team defense.  We're 20th this season.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/defensive-efficiency?date=2017-02-12

And I'm pretty sure most other measurements of overall defense will show a similar decline.  By comparison, San Antonio was #1 both seasons and Golden State increased from #8 to #2.

One shouldn't overreact.  This team's record is probably about as good as we can expect given out talent level.  But our defense is obviously much worse than last season and there's no point in denying it, especially since if we lose in the first round again it will almost certainly be the cause.

It's almost impossible to imagine winning a title with a defense as poor as ours this season, so this is an issue that will need to eventually be addressed if we ever hope to do that.

Mike

[fantankerous]

I think this could hurt us a lot in the playoffs. We are 8th in team pt differential due to a lot of success on offense. There is good reason to be skeptical that we can have similar success on offense in the playoffs. Considering how important IT is to our offense and how bad he is on defense, I have concerns.

I find comments about "effort" to be cheap and unsubstantiated. Every team goes there when they lose, which is silly because if every teams gives full effort, half the teams playing every day will still lose and blame effort. It is lazy analysis. The idea that defense is mostly effort is a myth. Speed, quickness, strength, coordination, and the ability to make split second reactions are not just in-game effort.

However, "(s)peed, quickness, strength, coordination, and the ability to make split second reactions" can't explain our defensive regression given our roster continuity.

[td450]

Avery Bradley has missed a lot of games.
Losing Evan Turner has been a net loss to our defense, especially early in the year.
Amir Johnson hasn't been as strong a defender as last year.
Jae Crowder hasn't been as strong a defender as last year.
IT is using less much energy on defense this year due to his insane workload on offense.

I think we'll be fine. AB will be back soon, Crowder's ankle woes are fading away, and Jaylen Brown is improving rapidly on defense. By the end of this year, he will be a better defender than Turner ever was. IT is a problem, but he's such a great offensive player that we have to accept the compromise.

The biggest issue is Amir Johnson. He has strong games less often than last year and that trend is likely to continue. If Ainge wants to get a major bump this year, Ibaka or Noel would plug that hole perfectly. I'm just not sure that Ainge will see this year as important enough to take a chance on signing one of those guys to a favorable deal next year.

[Tr1boy]

Avery Bradley has missed a lot of games.
Losing Evan Turner has been a net loss to our defense, especially early in the year.
Amir Johnson hasn't been as strong a defender as last year.
Jae Crowder hasn't been as strong a defender as last year.
IT is using less much energy on defense this year due to his insane workload on offense.

I think we'll be fine. AB will be back soon, Crowder's ankle woes are fading away, and Jaylen Brown is improving rapidly on defense. By the end of this year, he will be a better defender than Turner ever was. IT is a problem, but he's such a great offensive player that we have to accept the compromise.

The biggest issue is Amir Johnson. He has strong games less often than last year and that trend is likely to continue. If Ainge wants to get a major bump this year, Ibaka or Noel would plug that hole perfectly. I'm just not sure that Ainge will see this year as important enough to take a chance on signing one of those guys to a favorable deal next year.

The defensive issue has been there since the start of year season... its not about AB missing games recently

teams are exploiting on size mismatches (IT4) and lack of rim protection

Celtics as a team I believe are rebounding at a better rate this season than last season... so don't think that is the drop off. 

[Evantime34]

1. The C's aren't forcing as many turnovers. Last year we forced turnovers on 14.6% of our defensive possessions good for 4th in the NBA. This year we are forcing turnovers on 12.7% of our defensive possessions good for 15th in the NBA.

2. 3 point shooting: last year teams shot 33.6% from 3 against us on 23.3 attempts per game, this year they are shooting 34.5% from 3 against us on 26.9 3's per game. Essentially teams are shooting more 3's and hitting them at a higher rate against us.

3. Rebounding. Statistically we are getting a higher percentage of available rebounds than last year, even though last year 74.6 was good for 26th where 74.7 is good for 29th this year. We have been bad both years at rebounding, but now that we aren't forcing turnovers and allowing teams to hit more 3's against us the bad rebounding is making more of a difference. Sully is absolutely a better rebounder than Horford, but overall it hasn't made a huge difference on our team rebounding. While Horford's passing, floor spacing and screen setting has helped propel our offense to the top 7 of the league.

4. On the bright side, last year we were an average team in the clutch, which cause the Celtics to underperform their pythagorean win total by 2 games. This year, we are already over performing our pythag win total by 4 games, thanks in large part to the clutch scoring of IT.

[td450]

Avery Bradley has missed a lot of games.
Losing Evan Turner has been a net loss to our defense, especially early in the year.
Amir Johnson hasn't been as strong a defender as last year.
Jae Crowder hasn't been as strong a defender as last year.
IT is using less much energy on defense this year due to his insane workload on offense.

I think we'll be fine. AB will be back soon, Crowder's ankle woes are fading away, and Jaylen Brown is improving rapidly on defense. By the end of this year, he will be a better defender than Turner ever was. IT is a problem, but he's such a great offensive player that we have to accept the compromise.

The biggest issue is Amir Johnson. He has strong games less often than last year and that trend is likely to continue. If Ainge wants to get a major bump this year, Ibaka or Noel would plug that hole perfectly. I'm just not sure that Ainge will see this year as important enough to take a chance on signing one of those guys to a favorable deal next year.

The defensive issue has been there since the start of year season... its not about AB missing games recently

teams are exploiting on size mismatches (IT4) and lack of rim protection

Celtics as a team I believe are rebounding at a better rate this season than last season... so don't think that is the drop off.

Yes the defensive issues surfaced at the beginning of the year. That doesn't mean losing Bradley hasn't hurt team defense. It just means there are other factors.

At the start of the year, the team had to adjust to changing personnel. There were some other injuries involved. Jaylen Brown had no experience as a defender. Turner was gone and Crowder's ankle wasn't 100%.

As time has gone on, some of those things have changed. Bradley is one of the reasons, not a full explanation, but losing him clearly has made things harder.
 

[CelticPride2016]

Offense is up everywhere. It is a league trend? Plus, we lost Sully and yeah, one word, rebounding.

But the rebounding has been very good the last couple weeks. That is a very good development.

Isaiah is what he is. We will probably never be a top defensive team with him. But, I think we can win it all with I.T., and hopefully this playoffs will answer a lot of the remaining doubts about that ultimate I.T. debate.

So the plan seems to be our defense takes a little guy hit, but our offense takes such a big time leap that it doesn't matter.

It's all about winning. Ainge has always been aware of the different types of teams, this conflict between offense and defense.

Basketball is tough because the best offensive players cannot be stopped no matter what. The league loves that and some claim we are fans of a form of professional wrestling. Offense has the in-built advantage over defense.

This is why a more efficient Marcus Smart could put us over the top. Someone had the gall to say that his leading hustle stats are meaningless in regards to defining who is a great player. We'll just ignore that Smart is a rare player who can consistently dominate or otherwise positively impact the team on half of the court?

Look, Memphis is outstanding for defense. Everyone knows it. But they never win anything when it matters. We need a balance between the two sides of the court. I think we are only one big away and health from challenging Cleveland and Golden State. One player. He doesn't have to be Cousins. He probably doesn't even have to be a starter. We will eventually have to replace Horford, but that's 3+ years away. When Amir is healthy and playing well, and yeah, Olynyk too, we become the fourth best team in the NBA. We are getting closer and closer. In a year or two, we should become a top three team. For now, I think people should support these guys and stop complaining and offering excessive trade speculation.

We are missing one quality big and the tides of time. I can't believe the amount of whining that goes on here at Celtics Blog. As Tommy would say, it's ridiculous! No Christmas love for them. Or he always has something funny to say. It will be a sad day when he stops announcing. People who attack Heinsohn are the worst Celtics fans. That is disgusting. He probably taught Olynyk that hook flip he's added to his repertoire. But this is about defense. People are blind if they can't see how much better Olynyk has gotten at it over the last three years.

But we are missing one more big, and that guy, whomever it is - Zizic or somebody, should be able to round us into a decent defensive team. Sully was too fat and short.

[flybono]

No legit 5 that controls the paint

[trickybilly]

Surprised that noone has mentioned pace. Opposing teams are just taking more shots...