On a recent live stream, Jaylen Brown asked Jordan Walsh to name his five favorite defenders the NBA has ever seen. He listed Gary Payton, Kawhi Leonard, Dikembe Mutombo, Jrue Holiday … and himself.
That's bold.
And while he has nowhere near the resume of those other guys, he has at least opened up Microsoft Word, named it ‘JWalshDResume.doc’ and started adding a couple of bullet points.
Walsh didn’t list one name, Marcus Smart, which set Brown off on a highlight binge to let Walsh know exactly who he was leaving off. At the same time, he was letting Walsh know exactly who he needs to be to make a name for himself in Boston. The Celtics need a defensive menace to unleash on other teams, and Walsh is it.
That's how he likes it.
“Honestly, I'd be forgetting what happened on offense,” he told reporters in Washington after blowing out the Wizards. “I’m so focused on getting back on defense so then it leaves my mind. But then whenever I get, like, a steal and a dunk, or a steal, or a rebound, that stays with me. I don't know why, it's weird for me. But that's how it happens. I just kind of forget and then move on to defense, and then defense always sticks with me for some reason.”
Walsh has become an elite defender for the Celtics. He has matched up individually with some of the best players Boston has faced and shut them down. He’s held Donovan Mitchell to four points on 2-8 shooting, Tyrese Maxey to four points on 1-9 shooting, and Cade Cunningham to five points on 0-6 shooting (there were a couple of shooting fouls).
One thing that stands out is his versatility. He has guarded everyone with some level of success. According to league tracking data, Walsh has spent 12% of his time on the floor covering centers this season, and they're shooting 35.3%. He’s guarded forwards 32% of the time and they're shooting 43.5%. Guards make up a bulk of his assignments, 56%, and they're shooting 41%.
Overall, the players Walsh has guarded so far are shooting 41.1% overall, 32% from 3, and they’ve turned it over 21 times in 18 games.
“It’s huge anytime you get turnovers, and you can push in transition, get a numbers advantage, get cross-matches, stuff like that,” Derrick White said. “Jordan has kind of started that with his ball pressure, and then everybody's kind of looking for different chances to get those turnovers, and then get out and run try to create offense off of our defense.”
Walsh has developed an incredible ability to guard players straight up and still get steals, which is very difficult to do. Most turnovers come off bad passes and double-teams, but Walsh is able to time how he unleashes his go-go-gadget arms so he can rip the ball clean and start transition opportunities.
“It hasn't come out of nowhere,” Joe Mazzulla said. “He's chipped away at just taking advantage of every possible moment that he knows he has to get better. So it hasn't come as a surprise at all. But he takes very seriously if it's a 15-minute workout, a 30-minute workout. He takes that seriously, and that's just as important as the game.”
That's all true, but there's nothing like a game, and Walsh is finally getting to ply his trade against live competition. He has admitted the game is slowing down for him, and part of that is because he’s in games, learning how to navigate them, and gaining confidence along the way.
“This league’s all about opportunity,” White said. “And I wouldn't really say he's had much of an opportunity his first two years. And so he’s got it now, and he's definitely making most of it.”
The other part of Walsh’s success is because of the scheme. With all the changes to the roster, Mazzulla has had to implement a new, more aggressive style of defense. Walsh now gets to use more of his instincts to pounce rather than mostly focus on positioning.
“I feel like we've, in the past two years, at least since I've been here, we've kind of been a sit in our shift, kind of like, let them play one on one, we're not really helping too much,” Walsh said. “This year, it's all about helping the other guy out. We'll live with a kick-out three. If we can get a good contest, we can live with it, but we're not allowing anything in the paint, for the most part.”
Walsh is feasting now that he’s able to do what he does best, and he’s building off it. Mazzulla called Walsh “unscreenable” against the Wizards, which is a more important skill than being able to pick off an occasional pass or pester a player into giving the ball up here and there. Being unscreenable prevents teams from gaining the advantages they're looking for.
He’s certainly not perfect. Walsh will still foul a bit too much, but that will dwindle as his defensive reputation grows. As officials learn how good Walsh is defensively, they will give him more benefit of the doubt on close calls. For now, he’ll just have to work to build that reputation and add more bullet points to his resume.
Eventually, the Celtics will get Jayson Tatum back, and the Celtics will roll with the Jays as a lethal one-two punch. Walsh will get some overflow offense, but he’ll mostly have to create his own opportunities off his defense.
That's something he’s perfectly happy to do.
“It's momentum,” Walsh said. “I'm just going to keep doing it until it stops working. I’m gonna eat off of it, the team feeds energy off of it, and (the opponent) is put in a mood of where it’s like ‘oh my goodness, who's gonna bring up the ball? We gotta switch up.’ So it's just kind of like, more disrupting them, their pace, their rhythm. That makes a difference.”