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You Won’t Believe The Huge Impact The Former UCLA Star Has Made

Posted on by L. Dreeye
You Won’t Believe The Huge Impact The Former UCLA Star Has Made

It wasn’t until last season that former UCLA Bruins star Jrue Holiday finally began to earn the respect he deserves.

Holiday won his second NBA title last June, but this time it came with the popular Boston Celtics, putting his brilliance on full display.

While Holiday is a tremendous all-around player, he is best known for his defensive prowess, and last year he joined a Celtics team that was already outstanding defensively.

But this year, Holiday’s show is split into weekends. how dominant he really is at the other end of the floor.

Through the first month and change of the 2024-25 NBA campaign, Boston is scoring 108.1 points per 100 possessions when Holiday is on the court and 117.1 points per 100 possessions when he is on the bench.

That means the Celtics score nine points per 100 possessions better defensively when Holiday is in the game. This is truly an amazing statistic that shows just how phenomenal the UCLA legend is on that end of the floor.

Think about it: Boston has a ton of great defenders on its roster, but Holiday is so good that the team’s defense still drops when he sits.

Holiday isn’t even having his best offensive year, averaging 12.2 points per game on 45.9/34.8/90.9 shooting. But his value to the Celtics goes beyond his offensive repertoire.

We saw this last year when Holiday was able to guard a wide variety of players during the playoffs with his unique combination of size, strength, athleticism and veteran savvy.

Remember how he made life difficult for Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving in the Finals? And this was after Irving torched an incredibly tough Minnesota Timberwolves defense.

Holiday has always been a good player, but he’s now starting to earn Hall of Fame recognition despite only making a couple of All-Star appearances since entering the NBA in 2011.

That’s how good Holiday is defensively and how much of an impact he really has.

Let’s see if Holiday can help the Celtics win their second straight NBA title this season.

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