Robert Parish is talking about Celtics defense.
Parish named defense as Boston’s biggest weakness Monday, telling Sirius XM NBA Radio it’s the reason why the struggling Celtics are 17-17 and have become “just another team.”
“They’re coming up short defensively,” Parish said. “When they had (Marcus) Smart and (Al) Horford, their defense was disruptive, it was smothering and it caused a lot of problems for the opposing team. Their defense doesn’t make anybody nervous now. They don’t make other teams uncomfortable now. They’re just another team.
“They’re underachiving drastically from a defensive standpoint. Because you can’t depend on your offense every night, but you can always depend on your defense. Defense is mental. You’ve got to want to play defense. It doesn’t require a lot of talent to play defense.”
The Celtics actually have the eighth-best defense in the NBA, as opponents are averaging 110.4 points per game. In the 16 games Smart has missed since tearing his calf in late January, Celtics opponents have averaged 111.7 points against them. Although the latter number is slightly worse than the former, it does not seem to explain fully why the Celtics are 7-9 without their defensive lynchpin.
However, Parish focuses on something the numbers do not necessarily highlight: Boston’s mentality on any given night is an uncertain proposition. The Celtics recently have beaten strong teams like the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets but lost to the likes of the Washington Wizards and Atlanta Hawks. Parish could not stress further the importance of defense, as he uttered some version of the word an Allen Iverson-esque eight times in 37 seconds.
Inconsistency defines a .500 team, and the Celtics would be be wise to take a Parish’s insight as a challenge they have no choice but to accept if they are to make this season a positive one.
