All the noise about the Celtics' offense -- its historic efficiency, its weird haziness -- has hidden the team's true bedrock.
The season-long chatter about Jayson Tatum the Celtics' offense has hidden perhaps the team's most important bedrock: an elite, versatile defense. -- including the generally muted reaction to their 12-2 scorched-earth run through the remains of the East this postseason -- centers around the style and substance of their offense.
For other elite teams, the fallback plan is giving the ball to their apex superstar and asking him to create magic. That is where Tatum is perhaps not quite the player his harshest critics want him to be -- the kind of tall ball handler who does everything at an elite level. He is not, in other words, the sort of all-consuming offensive force Boston is about to face in the NBA Finals:Tatum is not far from that. He deserved his first-team All-NBA spot -- his third straight.
But all the noise about Boston's offense -- what it is, what it isn't -- has overwhelmed the coverage of its real fallback: an elite, versatile defense. Perhaps Boston's greatest strength -- the thing that makes it distinct from lots of contenders, maybe including Dallas -- is that its best offensive players are also very good defenders. The Celtics do not have to compromise anything on one end to lift up the other.made All-Defensive Second Team.
Defense has been Boston's bedrock since that 2022 Finals team went 26-6 to finish the regular season. The first signs that Boston's playoff run last season might get dicey came when that bedrock wobbled in its six-game first-round series win over the. The Celtics made a few more mistakes every game than would be typical for a group of defenders so accomplished -- botched coverages, miscommunications on switches, blips of inattention.
But Boston can ratchet it up, too. In their three series, the Celtics accessed a higher gear on defense when they needed to. They elevated into a state of controlled frenzy, smothering every option, moving as one entity, responding to every opposing two-man action with the precise right read.notand Mitchell. Tatum, probably anticipating Strus might abort the screen early -- a classic anti-switch device -- stays home. Holiday sticks to Mitchell. That looks like nothing -- rote defense.
The point is that if Doncic wants to go after Boston's centers, he has to use someone other than Lively and Gafford as his screener to do it. That leaves those big men to linger around the basket; if Doncic's pick-and-roll partner -- Jones, Washington,Doncic has seen many variants of this scheme over many years. He and the Mavericks know the counters. Washington can pop for 3s. They can run sideline pick-and-rolls to stretch Boston's defense.
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