73-9?

Remember when Michael, Scottie, Dennis and Phil ran through the league like the bulls (no pun intended) in Pamplona? It was the 1995-96 season, there was simply no competition; no other team could so much as lay a penny down on their tracks to derail this once in a lifetime runaway train.

Besides the obvious fact that they had a cogitative basketball mind at the helm, the best player of his era, a sidekick who was named one of the 50 greatest players of all time and the most useful role playing rebounder in league history, the Bulls won the championship because of one underlying reason.  Defense.

As stated in an old Sports Illustrated feature that was written right before that fateful Finals started:

“The Bulls’ defensive prowess often gets short shrift because of their other, more spectacular attributes. It is not well known, for instance, that Chicago tied for second in the league in fewest points allowed (92.9 per game) during the regular season…Entering the Finals they had allowed a measly 85.7 points per game in their 12 postseason games, and they had given up more than 100 points only twice. It took overtime to bring one such lapse, a 102-99 Eastern Conference semifinal victory by the New York Knicks in Chicago’s only loss of the playoffs.”

After a league record 72 wins were racked up, Jordan was asked during the post-season what he felt his team’s biggest strength was.

“Our offensive execution has been up and down,” he said. “Our shooting has been up and down. But our defense has never deserted us.”

Those are wise, wise words from a man who knew what it took to win a 48-minute basketball game.  It was known at the time that Michael could drop 50 points any time he stepped on the court, but where he truly cemented his legacy was on the other end.  When he pulled his shorts up high on his thighs, got on the balls of his feet and made his opponent wish he’d gone to law school, that’s the Michael Jordan we knew and loved.

The Bulls that season had three players (Jordan, Pippen and Rodman) who finished first team all-defense.  To put that in perspective, there are five players in the entire league who are named to that team with no respective designation to position.  Meaning if no point guards in the league played a lick of defense one year, they would just add an extra forward or vice versa.  So three players from that Chicago squad made it which means those three were in the top five in the entire league on the defensive end of the ball.

This boggles the mind.

Throw in Ron Harper, a man who could probably touch both ends of a field goal post if he were standing in the middle, to guard the other team’s floor general and Chicago was an absolutely ridiculous group of defensive talent.

Which naturally brings us to the Boston Celtics.  Rasheed Wallace, a man who may have made one or two obscene predictions in his lengthy career, stated that the 2009-10 Celts could and would break the 72 win record that some feel can never be sniffed at.

Much like that team in Chicago, which started a 32-year-old Jordan, a 30-year-old Pippen (who played much older thanks to his bad back), a 32-year-old Ron Harper and a 34-year-old Dennis Rodman, Boston isn’t exactly young.  What they are is experienced; they  have a much younger bench, an all-star point-guard and a defensive minded bulldog starting at center.

Through the first six games of the season, the Celtics are leading the league in opponent points per game (81.5), opponent three point percentage (.247) and turnovers (101). They are tied for second best in opponent field goal percentage (.407), tied for third in blocks (33) and second in steals (51).

Against an athletic Charlotte Bobcats team that for whatever reason normally gives Boston fits, Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins combined for seven blocks while Rondo and his three steals demoralized Larry Brown’s young troops.  Their leading scorer that night was Gerald Wallace who had 10 points as Charlotte (a team in the NBA mind you) mustered all of 59 points through four quarters.

On the road to square off against a Philadelphia team that was averaging just over 115 points a night, the Celtics came into the Wachovia Center like a steel net the size of a city block.  The Sixers scored 74 points.

While Boston still has the same old offensive talents in Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, through the first six games they’re just slightly above the league’s scoring average and fourth in their own division.  Of course nobody in green could care less, from the door they’ve decided the one way to 73 wins and an 18^th banner is stops.

Like the lanky Ron Harper once said, “Defense is our little secret.”

14 years later, it’s Boston’s too.