When you watch a Celtics game, it becomes obvious pretty quickly who their most important player is. It's not Rajon Rondo, despite the fact that he's the best passer in the league. It's not Paul Pierce, the 2nd best scorer in team history. It's Kevin Garnett. Even at age 36, in his 18th NBA season, it's Garnett who makes the biggest impact on his team.
KG has been on the floor for 904 minutes this season, for an average of 29.2 minutes per game. During those 29 minutes - the Celtics are pretty good. They average 101.1 points per 100 possessions, and give up 99.5. Again not great, especially offensively. But the defensive number is well above average. In fact if the Celtics played that type of defense all game, not just when Garnett was on the floor, they'd be the 3rd best defensive team in the entire NBA.
Unfortunately for the C's, not only does the team slip on defense when KG is off the floor (which would be expected considering how good he is), they...
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January 04, 2013
