They find an opening with shutdown D

And, as always when the Spurs are around, the talk turns to defense, and the outcome hinges on which team can make the stops in a close game. San Antonio always used to be that team when it played the Celtics. Yesterday, even without Kevin Garnett to anchor things, the Celtics were that team.

In the end, the Celtics made the stops in a 98-90 victory. In the end, the Celtics made the hustle plays. In the end, the Celtics got a welcome, if surprising 33-minute stint from Glen Davis that had everyone in black and silver throwing bonbons his way following a 9-point, 8-rebound performance. The Celtics now have a two-game winning streak over a team that, until last St. Patrick's Day, hadn't lost to a Boston team in a decade.

Kind of overnight, the Celtics have become the Spurs. They brought in defensive guru Tom Thibodeau ("He's a master," lauded Bowen). They brought in Garnett ("By osmosis, his energy and effort rubs off. He makes his teammates play hard and they don't want to mess up and have to hear it from him," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said). At times yester day, the Spurs must have felt like they were playing against their old selves. The Celtics allowed them very few uncontested shots and 0 (as in zero) fast-break points in the game.

"Defensively they were solid," Duncan said. "They are always solid."

Now that qualifies as high praise.

The stats say the Celtics have been, from Day 1, the best defensive team in the league. The Spurs were always among the top two or three teams in the two big categories - points allowed and defensive field goal percentage. Yesterday, they walked onto the TD Banknorth Garden floor No. 3 in points allowed (behind Boston and Detroit) but, ahem, 14th in defensive field goal percentage (behind such defensive juggernauts as Indiana and Phoenix). And the Celtics shot 46.5 percent, higher than what the Spurs usually allow.

"I had noticed watching some of their games before and then looking at the stats that they were the top defensive team in the league," the Spurs' Manu Ginobili said. "You gotta give them credit. They play hard. They do it consistently."

Or, as Popovich noted, perhaps somewhat plaintively, "They play harder and more aggressively, more physically, than anyone, than any other team in the league on a consistent basis. That's what makes them special."