What Big 3?

I contend that the story of the 2007-08 Boston Celtics is defense, and the Big Three, especially Kevin Garnett, have played no small role in making the GREEN's defense the best in the league. And their top-rated defense is the primary reason they have the league's best record.

Still, the acquisitions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett put offense in the forefront of most discussions about Celtics basketball during the pre-season. Through 20 games, what do we know about The Big Three's contribution on offense?

In only 1 game have each member of The Big Three scored at least twenty points. In one game none of them scored more than 16 points. In less than half of their games (nine) have two of the three scored 20 points or more. In two games one of them scored in single digits, and in one game two of them scored in singled digits.

To be sure, decreased playing time in blowouts explain some of these surprising numbers. But even in a blowout, someone besides Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce must be scoring the ball to keep The Big Three's numbers down.

The Celtics still have plenty of work ahead to get into championship form. Everyone agrees on this point, The Big Three and Doc Rivers included. Heading into April, all three members of the The Big Three will need to be playing at a very high level almost every night.

This does not necessarily mean that each of them must score 20 points per game every night. But it should be interesting to see if their scoring numbers uptick consistently as they prepare for the stretch run at banner number 17.

The Big Three's Scoring Contributions over the First 20 Games

17, 22, 28
33, 23, 13
22, 23, 26
14, 27, 23
27, 18, 28
17, 18, 31
14, 16, 15
19, 26, 12
19, 14, 28
21, 20, 19
18, 21, 20
14, 23, 23
29, 19, 16
21, 08, 21
17, 23, 27
20, 09, 07
12, 22, 19
13, 23, 18
21, 10, 16
15, 11, 26