The Celts are second in the league in scoring defense (88.27 ppg) and 10th in field goal defense (43.8 percent), but you wouldn't know it by Rivers' short-term memory.

``Defensively, probably three or four games ago, the Utah game, probably, though I'm just trying to focus in on the last two right now,'' Rivers said when asked the last time the Celtics truly dominated a game defensively. ``And we certainly didn't in either one of those two. Through training camp and the first five games we got off to a great defensive start. I think we thought it was going to be easy from that point on and it hasn't been, so we have to take that next step. We will.''

That's an interesting vow to make with tonight's opponent in mind. Golden State, with its undersized lineups and Don Nelson's premium on scoring, leads the NBA with a Westhead-era offensive philosophy and a 111.55 scoring average.

If the Celtics have indeed slipped in their ability to stop people, tonight's a good time to reverse the trend.

But forward Kevin Garnett doesn't like the use of the word slippage.

``I wouldn't call it slippage,'' he said. ``It's kind of weird (because) one thing leads to another. Slippage is when you stop being consistent with what you've started with. If you look at the two games we've lost, (vs. Atlanta) Joe Johnson was very aggressive. Usually we cancel Mike Bibby out, but he broke out. Same thing with Indiana. Danny Granger was very aggressive early and once we cooled him off, Dontae Jones was really aggressive. When he was with Denver he wasn't even a factor.

``You give guys confidence, then anybody can score in this league,'' Garnett said. ``You can't win like that. It just makes it difficult to win. I wouldn't call it slippage, though. Are we as crisp as we can be? No. We are not that team that's as polished as we can be, but we're trying to put it together.''

The Celtics may also need some work on their humility. Consider the case of Jones, until Saturday a player known as a light-scoring defender.

``We still have to respect other teams coming in,'' said guard Ray Allen. ``The other night, Dontae Jones scored 25 points. He's a guy we had here in camp two years ago, and we didn't adjust to his ability to score that night. Whatever we were thinking, that he couldn't make shots or they wouldn't give him the ball, well, they did. We didn't recognize it quick enough to try and take that away.

``It's something defensively we have to mentally adjust to, and we have to respect every team. Every team we play, we have to ultimately look at that game as the one that gets us homecourt advantage.''

- mrmurphy@bostonherald.com