Boston Celtics Winning With Defense

The Boston Celtics are using defense to make up for any offense struggles

The Boston Celtics are still fighting through a transition period. The fresh roster still needs to settle, and injuries have made it close to impossible to properly define any roles. The Celtics still are not the team that was envisioned after the remarkable offseason, but they are figuring out how to win as they fight through the problems.

Offense is clearly still a work in progress, and Al Horford is the only player who really looks like he understands and is settled into the role that is needed this season. Everyone else, however, is still adjusting or figuring things out, preventing the offense from reaching the potential the talent offers.

That being said, the Celtics are doing the most important thing as they fight through these issues, winning. They are currently on a four game winning streak and they do not get a single one of those wins without their defense.

The Celtics are collectively playing defense at an elite level, and even the youngest players on the team are having a positive impact on that end.

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Keep in mind, they have also done this with Marcus Smart sidelined and limited with an injury, and we went into this season picking him as the most important defender on the team.

Brad Stevens has every player on this team reaching or exceeding their defensive expectations, and that alone will make them an incredibly tough matchup. We saw it last night, the Celtics currently have the defense that will keep them in games, and we know that they have a closer in Kyrie Irving, even if he has to go out and do it by himself.

The Celtics currently have the second best defensive efficiency in the league, are top five in steals and are somehow hovering around top 10 in rebounding. The Celtics are producing and making plays on the defensive end, and that will always be the key to winning through the offensive struggles.

Offense is something that the Celtics can be content with struggling a bit right now. Irving is still figuring out exactly how he can run this offense to get the most out of himself and his teammates, a 19 year old rookie has immediately been thrust into a main offenisve role, and Jaylen Brown has shown that he can explode in any given game.

There are a lot of working pieces that are unsettled on offense, and that would be killing this team right now if it wasn’t for the defense that they are playing.

The defense is giving the offense the freedom to figure things out properly. Stevens is not going to try and force things to get a quick fix on offense, and that would be costing them a lot of games if they are not picking things up on the defensive end.

The Celtics went into this season knowing they had the offensive talent to be a powerhouse in the league, but were unsure they would have the defensive personnel, particularity in small ball situations with Horford’s rebounding issues.

That offensive talent is still there but we are now realizing that their defensive talent was horribly underrated. Horford has been shutting down some of the most dynamic bigs in the NBA, Irving looks transformed from his days in Cleveland, Brown looks ready to take on any matchup, Jayson Tatum is never a liability, and is finding a lot of ways to make plays.

The Celtics are quickly realizing how much potential there is on defense with this team, and that is before we have really felt the full impact of Smart, or Marcus Morris.

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Right now, it is much better for the Celtics that they are winning with defense, rather than having to make up for it. The Celtics are putting in the work, and they are making sure they will find ways to win, even when they are not functioning nearly as well as they need to on offense.

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