Boston’s defense has been taking a beating on and off the floor for most of this early season. There are stretches where it looks lost, which is confusing for a team that spent so much of last season being so good at it.
Do they miss Robert Williams that much? Was Ime Udoka that good at coaching defense?
Well, yes and, partly yes, but each season presents new challenges with new personnel and new agendas. Each season is a new movie, even if it’s a sequel to the last one. Things change.
But the Celtics haven't flat-out forgotten how to defend, despite looking like they have for too long in too many games. Despite being their own worst enemies when they let their guard down for stretches, there are some signs that they're getting back some of their defensive swagger.
The 106 points they gave up to Memphis was their third-lowest total points allowed this season. No Celtics opponent currently has a better offensive rating than the Grizzlies (114.8, t-4th NBA). Memphis is tied with Cleveland for fourth, and Boston has given up 114 and 123 to the Cavs (107 and 114 in regulation). The only teams Boston has held to fewer points are the Miami Heat (104) and the Washington Wizards (94). Those teams are currently 21st and 24th in the league in offense.
So the Celtics were able to hold a good offense somewhat in check -- at least when it mattered.
“Our guys have always played hard,” Joe Mazzulla said after the win. “But tonight I felt like we took a step towards our defensive details, our positioning, our attention to detail as far as personnel. Everything we talked about our guys just did a great job carrying that over.”
The Celtics held the Grizzlies to 21 fourth-quarter points. They did a great job closing out halves, mostly because Ja Morant sat to start the second and fourth quarters, but they also held the Grizzlies to 20 in the second quarter. There are only three other quarters so far this season where the Celtics have held an opponent to fewer points: 15-point quarters against the Cavs and Wizards, and a 19-point fourth quarter in their first matchup against Cleveland in Boston.
In fact, through 40 quarters played this season, Boston has only held an opponent to less than 25 points in nine of them. However, six of those nine have come over the last five games. That has helped move their defensive rating in the right direction. It started out at 117 through the first five games, which was fifth-worst in the league. Over the last five games, it’s 109.4. That's still only good enough to be middle of the pack, but the trend is very encouraging. For now, they're getting by with the league’s third-best net rating over the last five games thanks to what’s currently the league’s number one offense at 118 points per 100 possessions.
“There's gonna come a time where our shots aren't falling and our defense is gonna need to stay where it's at,” Marcus Smart said. “When you got a good defense and you’re executing on the defensive end, you're locked in, you’re communicating, and you're focused on the defensive end, when your shots don't fall, your defense helps that. For us, when our shots don't fall and our defense isn't where it’s at, we're in trouble.”
They found themselves in trouble against the Grizzlies thanks to Ja Morant. His 14-point third quarter carried the Grizzlies back from a game that was starting to get away from them. Morant helped Memphis take a lead heading into the fourth, but when it mattered most, the Celtics were able to bother him and force misses, and Smart was able to step in front of him and perfectly time a crossover to draw an offensive foul.
Yes, the Grizzlies made a late run when things got dicey. Nothing is perfect. But the way Boston built its lead was through getting the stops they needed, when they needed them.
“We’re figuring it out,” Smart said. “We got everybody playing different positions. We had Grant Williams guarding Ja Morant tonight. Think about that. So we're still figuring out things, positions, where to be, and when to switch and things like that, but we're figuring it out. We're finding ways to win games.”
They are now 7-3, tied for third in the East and only two games behind the Milwaukee Bucks. They're third in overall wins and fourth in winning percentage through 10 games. No matter how bad things have felt, they’ve lost one bad game to the Bulls, and two overtime games to the 8-2 Cavs.
Robert Williams’ return will help fix a lot of these problems, but they can’t just rely on him to be their savior. They need to continue this trend in this direction so they can enhance something that's good with Williams rather than rely on him as the only answer they have for their recurring issues.
It takes work, and the willingness to do it.
“Joe always talks about building the sandcastle,” Smart said. Sandcastles are inherently temporary, which means they have to be started from scratch every time. “Every day we got to come build our sandcastle, and it starts on the defensive end.”
