BOSTON – The best defensive backcourt in the league earned its flowers Tuesday when Jrue Holiday and Derrick White were selected to the NBA's All-Defensive Second Team.
It marked Holiday's sixth All-Defensive recognition, as he earned six First Team votes and 24 for the Second Team. For White, it was his second All-Defensive honor after also making the Second Team last season, earning 15 First Team votes and 68 Second Team votes.
Together, Holiday and White helped lead Boston to a defensive rating of 110.6, which was the second-best mark in the NBA behind Minnesota (108.4).
“Effort and versatility,” Celtics head coach Joe Mazzullasaid when asked about Holiday and White’s impact shortly after the All-Defense announcement. “They have the ability to guard different guys in pick-and-roll coverages, pick-and-roll isolation, off-ball screens. They’re just two versatile guys you can put on different matchups and different schemes with them and different lineup flexibility.”
Other Celtics who received votes were Jaylen Brown (three First Team and one Second Team) and Jayson Tatum (two Second Team).
The First Team consisted of Heat center Bam Adebayo, Lakers forward Anthony Davis, Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert, Pelicans forward Herb Jones, and Spurs center Victor Wembanyama.
Joining Holiday and White on the Second Team were Bulls guard Alex Caruso, Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels, and Magic guard Jalen Suggs.
This was the first year in which there were no positional requirements for each team, hence the frontcourt-heavy First Team.
With that being said, Holiday and White both made solid individual cases for the First Team.
White was the leading shot-blocker among qualified NBA guards this season, averaging 1.2 swats per game. His 87 blocks were the fourth-most in a single season all-time among players under 6-foot-5.
White also averaged the most contested shots (6.6) among qualified NBA guards. He had the second-best plus/minus (plus-319)in the league behind Nikola Jokic. And he had the third-best net rating (12.5) in the NBA behind teammates Sam Hauser (14.2) and Payton Pritchard (13.6).
Holiday’s impact was less stat-based and more focused on his overall presence. He is always in the right place at the right time, constantly moving and providing help, and making his teammates’s jobs easier on that end.
“It's been amazing playing with him,” White said of Holiday following Wednesday’s practice. Obviously, playing against him, you know what kind of defender he is, but just seeing it night in and night out and just the way that he impacts the game without touching the basketball, he's a special player and it's really nice to have him on our team. He just makes up for any mistakes that anybody makes. Jrue’s usually there to make up for it. I don't know how many All-Defense teams he’s made but he probably needs more because he's unreal.”
How Holiday and White complemented each other on the defensive end played a major role in the Celtics winning 64 regular-season games as well as their 9-2 postseason record.
Luke Kornet believes Boston would be nowhere near as successful as it has been if it weren’t for those two.
“There are some games where just the ability for one of them to pick up full-court or make some plays in a disadvantaged situation, I feel like it just sets the tone for everyone else defensively when you're seeing how hard they're going to work just to kind of get it into place to operate,” said the backup center. “We wouldn't be close to where we are without them and the impact that they have on that side of the ball.”
Holiday and White shared so much of the load on that side of the ball, so it’s only right that they share the honor of earning All-Defense as a tandem.