Best Defensive Teams

You may recall that the Celtics were a pretty good defensive team two seasons ago, when Kevin Garnett was healthy and they won their 17th championship. In fact, they were the best defensive team of the last 10 years when you compare their defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) to that of the league average that season.

Top Five Defensive Teams, Last Decade

Team Season Defensive Rating NBA average Differential Boston * 2007-08 96.4 104.7 -8.34 San Antonio 2003-04 91.7 100.0 -8.31 Detroit * 2003-04 92.6 100.0 -7.5 San Antonio * 2004-05 96.1 103.1 -7.0 Chicago 2006-07 97.1 103.7 -6.6

* = won NBA championship

This season, with the best teams in the league getting better, the Celtics may just have to be even more suffocating defensively than they were two seasons ago if they want to win banner No. 18. The question is: How do they do that?

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Another Take on Where the 2007-08 Celtics Rank Defensively

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According to Charlie Rosen, the 1965-66 Boston Celtics were the best defensive team ever (though, obviously they didn't play in the modern era). John Hollinger has the 2007-08 Celtics ranked 3rd all time, behind the 03-04 Spurs and the 92-93 Knicks. Whether this year's Celtics' squad deserves to be in the conversation with those four teams remains to be seen.

'85 Bears or Bust!

We wanna be the best defensive team ever. There's another level we want to get to. We want to be like the '85 Chicago Bears.

--Doc

According to Charlie Rosen, the 1965-66 Boston Celtics were the best defensive team ever. John Hollinger has the 2007-08 Celtics ranked 3rd all time, behind the 03-04 Spurs and the 92-93 Knicks. Whether this year's squad deserves to be in the conversation with those four teams remains to be seen.

The above quote from Doc was from over the weekend. In case you wonder if Doc ever tires of emphasizing D, you have the following exchange from today.

Q:

What did you tell your team you wanted to fix from last year — areas where you wanted to be better?

A:

Well, it sounds strange to you, but I thought we could improve defensively, number one. I told them as good as we’ve been the last two years … Last year I felt we slipped a little bit. Obviously, once Kevin went down it had a big impact on it. I thought we had to refocus on being a great defensive team.

Best Defensive Team in NBA History: 1965-66 Boston Celtics

Charlie Rosen, in your opinion, which was the best defensive team in NBA history?

— Daniel Lee, Los Angeles, CA

This is an easy one: The 1965-66 Boston Celtics.

In an era when Wilt Chamberlain typified the league's emphasis on high-volume scorers — with Wilt, Jerry West and Oscar Robertson all averaging over 30 points per game that season — the Celtics won their eighth consecutive championship on the basis of their defense.

During the regular season, they allowed opponents to score only 107.8 ppg, which was 4.2 points lower than the league's next best team defense (St. Louis). Boston's points-against-average was also 7.7 ppg less than the 115.8 points that all of the nine ball clubs scored per game.

In the Eastern Division finals, the Celtics squared off against Chamberlain and his Philadelphia 76er teammates (who had actually finished one game ahead of Boston in the regular season). The 76ers had averaged 117.3 ppg during the 80-game season but were limited to 104.0 while losing the series in five games.

Of course, the backbone of the stingy Celtic defense was Bill Russell. Back then, blocked shots were not included in the official statistics, but in hindsight, it is universally agreed that Russell must have averaged at least 10 swats per game.

Two other starters were also defensive stalwarts — Tom "Satch" Sanders and K.C. Jones. In addition, John Havlicek, who was Boston's sixth-man, was another ace defender — as demonstrated by his eventually being named to five All-NBA Defensive squads when he became a starter. Moreover, even though Woody Sauldsberry was on his last legs, he was still a plus-defender and was the only NBA player who could routinely shut down Elgin Baylor.

What was particularly interesting about this squad was that they played superior defense even as they played a decidedly up-tempo offense, which proves that, contrary to current thinking, the latter doesn't necessarily prohibit the former.

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Were the 2008 Celtics the Best Defensive Team Ever?

According to John Hollinger

All-time defensive efficiency leaders, relative to league, Since league began tracking turnovers in 1973-74

                  Defens    League
Team     Year     Effic     Effic     Differential
Spurs    03-04     92.31    100.84    -8.53
Knicks   92-93     96.77    105.07    -8.20
Celtics  07-08     96.16    104.14    -7.98
Knicks   93-94     95.85    103.72    -7.83
Spurs    04-05     95.80    103.09    -7.29

It's hard to believe that none of the three Pistons championship teams made the top five or the 87 Laker team.