Watch the defensive video breakdown i shared the other day, or any breakdown for that matter. Their game plan defensively as a TEAM starts way before he even gets the ball. They're completely revolving their defense around focusing on KD, and denying him any room to receive an entry pass with good position. They're playing physical with him on cuts, front guarding him all the way through his movement and basically hip checking him every opportunity they could get to force him to work every time he moved without the ball. They did this while giving up space to other guys around him, but nobody else could make them pay enough for that. Celtics straight up ignored the Nets big men and dared them to try to beat them with extra space, and they couldn't. Brilliant defensive game plan by the Celtics, because at the end of the day they knew there's absolutely no way the Nets win that series unless KD is KD and puts up his usual big scoring numbers.

Yes, there were situations where he got the ball on the perimeter and had a moment with 1 on 1, but the defense sagged and was ready to collapse as soon as he made a move. In most other cases they would just straight up send an extra defender at him to force him to give up the ball. Celtics individual defenders are good but even when he did get the ball in 1 on 1 he wouldn't have good position because of the team defense preventing him from getting into his mid-range comfort zone.

I hate the Celtics, but nobody can deny they are an outstanding defensive team. They were #1 during the regular season for a reason, and seem to be well coached now.

This post was edited by Sixers on Apr 26 2022 08:19am

Not reading all of that nonsense, but I watched every single posession of the entire series. Nn to watch some break down video.

There was a lot of help defense sure, but there was also a lot of 1v1 defense. KD was getting smoked by everything.

When Part 3?

Tl;dr Celtics entire game plan revolve around stopping KD as a team, this was clear to the world. Some people don't understand the off-ball defensive strategy that the Celtics used on KD to prevent positioning and to hassle him.

Watching live doesn't tell you everything at all, you probably watch the ball a lot. Watch game film and see what the Celtics did, they literally left the Nets big men and others alone to send help at KD so frequently it was insane. Gave him the Embiid treatment.

TLDR - if there's only one on ball defender, Kim thinks that person is single handedly stopping KD and ignores the help defenders clogging the lanes and leaving BKLY shooters open ( which they can because Brklyn is shit )

You can't executive this sort of defensive game plan unless you have the defensive versatility that the Celtics do, but it was well done.

This results in KD trying to force things when there's a small window of opportunity. Never got comfortable.

Breaking News: Ben Simmons intends to play Game 5. First team ever to make it back from 4-0.

He's so brave

Are u trying to teach me about my own team??????

Can’t even make sense of this post?

One on ball defender, help defenders clogging lanes, shooters wide open…

I’m sorry, what?