Defense?

[BudweiserCeltic]

I was particularly impressed with how Sully and Kelly held their own down low and on the glass against the fairly formidable front line of Valanciunas and Johnson.

This doesn't jive with what I saw at all.

My impressions were based on the visual evidence of watching the game.  But, go ahead and check the boxscore for confirmation.

My impressions were based on being roughly 15 feet from the basket during that game. 
If that's your bar for 'holding their own', then that's a low bar.

You are going to have to do a better job explaining how Brother Jonas and Amir owned Kelly and Sully in Wednesday night's game.  I only got to watch the game from my TV screen, and it's possible that CSNNE edited the game to make it not look as bad for our bigs, but from what I saw each of Toronto's starting big men only had a small handful of buckets each, and were not able to control the offensive glass.

As I remember (I think it was early in the second half), the Raptors had a stretch where they made a concerted effort to feed Prince Val down low to exploit the "mismatch" with Sully.  However, that strategy only resulted in one made basket followed by two or three empty trips for Toronto.  Then, they tried it with Amir against Kelly, and he came up with a goose egg as well. 

So, yeah, when the opposing front line has (without checking the box score) roughly five to seven points each and less than three offensive rebounds between them, I call that "holding your own."

What's your bar? Is anything less than scoreless unacceptable?

That was an interesting sequence with the force feeding of Valencunis. I felt so good when Sully consistently stopped him almost every time. Seems like Raptors coach was trying a specific pre-season experiment, and clearly it failed, at lest against Sully.

Overall this should be a better defensive team than last year. They will be much better at stopping the point of attack with Bradley, Smart, even Rondo and that will take huge pressure off the bigs Olynyk, Zeller, Sully and Bass all of whom are decent defensive big men.

To point to this extremely difficult 3-pointer by Williams as an example of the Celtics bad defense is just silly.

I don't know that Sully stopped him as much as Valenciunas missed his shots. Those are two different things.

And when the opposing front line you're comparing them to plays roughly half the minutes of the other one, I'm not sure that the box score is the best reference point.

Based on what I saw, the C's are going to get roasted by actual centers when the games start to matter. I don't think Sullinger played badly, I just don't think there was very much he could do.

While that's a legit observation to consider when analyzing someone's defense, I never got tired of hearing that rationale when pundits were discrediting Boston's defense in many occasions in their recent Championship year. It was a bit of a head scratcher how it wasn't until the end that their defense got the recognition it deserved, despite having KG having a dominant defensive year.

[Alleyoopster]

I'm surprised nobody is saying anything about Pressey's defense.   Haven't had a chance to watch the games as carefully as I would like.  Maybe there is more scoring going on against him than I am aware of.  But, from what I've seen, he can be the most irritating without-the-ball defender on the floor.  Am I missing something about his defense? 

[greece66]

I'm surprised nobody is saying anything about Pressey's defense.   Haven't had a chance to watch the games as carefully as I would like.  Maybe there is more scoring going on against him than I am aware of.  But, from what I've seen, he can be the most irritating without-the-ball defender on the floor.  Am I missing something about his defense?

He certainly tries a lot. He has earned everyone's respect with his effort.
But he is too short to contend shots well and IMHO he also has a tendency to gamble too much- which makes for some nice steals and highlights but also for some easy points for the other team, which cannot be statistically measured.

[D.o.s.]

I don't know that Sully stopped him as much as Valenciunas missed his shots. Those are two different things.

And when the opposing front line you're comparing them to plays roughly half the minutes of the other one, I'm not sure that the box score is the best reference point.

Based on what I saw, the C's are going to get roasted by actual centers when the games start to matter. I don't think Sullinger played badly, I just don't think there was very much he could do.

While that's a legit observation to consider when analyzing someone's defense, I never got tired of hearing that rationale when pundits were discrediting Boston's defense in many occasions in their recent Championship year. It was a bit of a head scratcher how it wasn't until the end that their defense got the recognition it deserved, despite having KG having a dominant defensive year.

Agreed.