Celtics In Familiar Territory: The League's Best Defense

Ben Rohrbach points out that the Celtics have been on a defensive tear recently. So much so that the team is now statistically at or near the top in the league in many defensive metrics.

Green Street " Irish Coffee: Do Celtics own NBA’s best defense?

The point? A case can be made, rather easily, that the C’s now own the NBA’s best defense. This recent run vaulted the Celtics to No. 1 in points allowed per 100 possessions (95.3). Their 89.3 points allowed per game still ranks third behind the only other teams that give up fewer than 90 points a night — the Sixers (88.5) and Bulls (88.9) — but that’s dropped to an NBA best 83.4 points surrendered over the past 10 games.

The ironic thing is that we've all been worried about the offense for much of the year (with good reason I think). But when the team steps up the defense, offensive opportunities increase and the margin for error becomes more favorable. Hey, maybe Doc was onto something after all.