Marcus Smart gives positive review of Celtics star Kemba Walker's defense

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/marcus-smart-gives-positive-review-175426445.html




Marcus Smart gives positive review of Celtics star Kemba Walker's defense



Nick Goss, NBC Sports Boston

19 hours ago



One of the first things you'll notice about Kemba Walker is he's an excellent scorer.

The new Boston Celtics point guard can drive to the basket and finish at the rim, he shoots well from 3-point range and he can create his own shot off the dribble. Walker averaged a career-high 25.6 points per game for the Charlotte Hornets last season and was named to the All-NBA third team.

Scoring isn't Walker's only talent, though. He's not a bad defender, either, and his Celtics (and Team USA) teammate Marcus Smart recently gave a positive review of the UConn product's defensive abilities in an interview with NBA.com's Sekou Smith.

"For me, I've noticed that Kemba can really play defense when he wants to do it," Smart said and then laughed. "You know it's tough, when you see how much energy he had to exert on the offensive end [in Charlotte], but he's actually a really good defensive player, especially at his size. You find out that the little guys are usually more feisty and tenacious. But he can play defense and you didn't really see that or notice that because he had so much of a load on him offensively that it was probably harder for him to do that."

Smart certainly knows what good defense looks like. He's one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and was a first team All-Defense selection last season.

Walker and Smart should be on the floor quite a bit together late in games for the Celtics this season, so the opportunity to learn each other's tendencies this summer playing for USA Basketball should accelerate their chemistry building when C's training camp begins.

The Celtics have been a strong defensive team for most of Brad Stevens' tenure as head coach, so if Walker can help maintain that success, Boston should again be among the most well-rounded teams in the league next season.



bob
MY NOTE:  Hopefully, surrounded by scorers like Jayson Tatum, Gordon Hayward and Enes Kanter Kemba won't feel the need to be a 25ppg scorer.  Sure, go crazy when we need it, but I hope we have enough depth at scoring he can feel comfortable expending more energy on the defensive end. His offense should come out of the flow of the game and not because he knows he needs to take over, like he knew he needed to in Charlotte.



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Bob

I agree 100%

Boston has more than enough scoring options that will allow Walker to put more effort into defending.  He was at 111.8 last year and we need him to be in the 106-107 range.

dboss wrote:Bob

I agree 100%

Boston has more than enough scoring options that will allow Walker to put more effort into defending.  He was at 111.8 last year and we need him to be in the 106-107 range.

dboss,

Actually, he was at 114 last year, per basketball-reference.com.  And, yes, we do need him to be in the 106-109 range.  Having said that, however, Kyrie Irving was 108 last year and Marcus Smart was 107 last year, and he's First Team All-Defense.  So, it would seem that it's Brad's defensive schemes that are producing positive defensive numbers for our back court.  On the other hand IT, in his MVP-consideration year of 2016-2017, was 112.  He was 122 on offense but 112 on defense.  He was/is the worst defender in the league but wasn't abominable on defense under Brad.  On offfensive, however, he took off and his +10 is what I'd like to see from Kemba.  He can be 114 on defense if he's a 124 on offense.  If he's 108, then I want 118 or better on offense.

Kyrie last year, btw, was 118 on offense, so he was a plus 10 with his 108 defense too.

These numbers are /100 possessions.  If we play more uptempo this year, as I hope we will, then we'll have more possessions and these Net Rating +/- will be more representative.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/walkeke02.html#all_per_poss



bob



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