The Celtics last two outings have seen them lose close games due to a failure to get key stops down the stretch. You can chalk it up to great shot making by D-Will and Dirk in the Dallas game, or DeRozan in last night’s game, but this team has clearly struggled to defend late in close games.

Taking a look at the numbers bears out the full scope of this problem.

The Good

The Celtics have an impressive 99.3 Defensive Rating on the year. Defensive Rating measures the number of points scored by opponents per 100 possessions. The Celtics 99.3 mark is good for 4th best in the NBA, trailing only San Antonio, Golden State, and Indiana.

However, the Celtics impressive Defensive Rating disappears in close games.

The Bad

In the "Clutch" (4th quarter or overtime, with less than five minutes remaining, and with neither team ahead by more than five points) the Celtics Defensive Rating balloons to a massive 115.5. That is a difference of -16.2 points vs their rating for full games. The league average defensive rating takes a hit in the clutch as well, but only by -4.5 points (from 102.6 to 107).

The numbers also show that the Celtics offense is not making up for their failings on defense down the stretch. The Celtics full game Offensive Rating in 101.9, which improves only modestly to 103.7 in the Clutch.

The Ugly

When you put the offensive and defensive ratings together, the Celtics 2.6 Net Rating for full games plummets to a -11.9 Net Rating in the Clutch.

To put that drop off in prospective, the Celtics Net Rating in the Clutch of -11.9 is worse than the lowest full game Net Rating of -11.1 held by the Lakers.

So yeah, The Celtics are statistically worse in the clutch than the Lakers are in full games..