It's time to give Celtics' Brad Stevens his flowers

If you could go into a lab and create the perfect defensive unit to guard high-octane, modern NBA offenses, you would likely come back with a combination that resembles the Celtics' starting five.

In Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Kristaps Porzingis, the Celtics have five players who, on most nights, have a positional size advantage against their matchups, making it nearly impossible for opponents to hunt mismatches on pick-and-roll actions. 

Even if Porzingis (or even Al Horford) gets switched onto a quick guard in attack mode, the Celtics have so much length all around to recover and help wherever needed. 

It might be hyperbole but these Celtics might have the most versatile defensive unit in history. 

The team's architect, Brad Stevens, had the unique advantage of coaching some of the core Celtics when the NBA was morphing into a five-out style of basketball with the need for versatile, switchable defenders. 

When Stevens traded in the clipboard for the front-office seat, he recognized the type of defenders Brown and Tatum needed around them and put the requisite pieces in place.

While he benefited from the Bucks' absurdity of trading Holiday to the Blazers, Stevens had the foresight to identify White and Porzingis as missing pieces to the puzzle at a time when neither player had very high trade value. 

In his four-and-a-half seasons with the Spurs, White failed to establish himself as a starter even as he showed flashes of a three-and-D specialist. Porzingis regressed from an All-Star in New York to Luka Doncic's sidekick (until he wasn't) to a player even the Wizards didn't want. 

Stevens saw an opportunity with two players and seized his moment. 

If there's one marker to encapsulate Boston's incredible defense, look no further than the fact the Mavericks have been held to under 100 points in all three games of the NBA Finals. The Mavs averaged 117.9 points per game in the regular season and 108 through the first three rounds of the playoffs.

Stevens' roster-building skills received the ultimate compliment after Boston's Game 2 win. Former Warriors front-office head Bob Myers called him "the Finals MVP" for putting the team together. 

As great as Brown and Tatum have been, it would be hard to argue with Myers.