Which prevails -- Lakers' offense or Celtics' defense?

Call it the immovable object versus the unstoppable force.

Lost in the wave of excitement about the retro NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the L.A. Lakers is the contrast in styles these two teams represent. When the Lakers have the ball, keep your eyes peeled, because it doesn't get any better than this matchup: the best offense in the game against one of the best defenses of all time.

Boston led the league in regular-season defensive efficiency by a large margin at 96.2. Relative to the league, only two teams in the past 35 years were better defensively, the 2003-04 Spurs and the 1992-93 Knicks (see chart).

Though we can't compare the Celtics to any team before the 1973-74 season because the league didn't track turnovers until then, we can consider this team a worthy successor to the Russell-era mantle of defensive dominance. Feisty D allowed the team with the league's 10th-best offense to roar to a league-best 66 wins.

All-Time Defensive Efficiency Leaders, Relative to League*
Team	Year	Def. Eff.	League Avg.	Differential
San Antonio	2003-04	92.31	100.84	-8.53
New York	1992-93	96.77	105.07	-8.20
Boston	2007-08	96.16	104.14	-7.98
New York	1993-94	95.85	103.72	-7.83
San Antonio	2004-05	95.80	103.09	-7.29

* - since league began tracking turnovers in 1973-74

Boston has kept up that defensive effort in the postseason. In the playoffs, the Celtics again rank first, narrowly edging out Cleveland at 99.4 and lapping the rest of the competition. Though not quite as dominant as the Celtics' regular-season statistic, this 20-game performance is a reasonable facsimile of the first 82 games.

Meanwhile, out on the other coast, L.A. swept to the top record in the West based largely on the league's third-best regular-season offense. But even that No. 3 ranking understates the Lakers' success.

The Lakers ranked fifth in offensive efficiency on Feb. 5, the day Pau Gasol first donned purple and gold. Then they had a little hiccup in late March, when Gasol missed nine games and all but three minutes of a 10th because of an ankle sprain.

Outside of that, Gasol played in 26 regular-season games for L.A. The team's offensive efficiency mark in those games? A staggering 114.0, which would have led the league by a mile had the Lakers kept that up all year; in fact, had they performed anywhere near that mark for a full season, they would have rivaled the greatest offensive teams in league history.

As with Boston, L.A.'s offensive performance hasn't been quite as jaw-dropping in the playoffs. L.A. is third among playoff teams in offensive efficiency at 109.0, standing a whisker behind Orlando and New Orleans.

Still, the 41 games of the Gasol era have produced very impressive results. Los Angeles has played half a season's worth of games with him in the lineup and has posted an offensive efficiency mark of 112.0, which would have comfortably led the league. (Phoenix was first in the regular season at 111.2.) And 15 of those games have come in the crucible of playoff competition, including five conference finals games against an elite defensive team from San Antonio.

So between Boston's defense and L.A.'s offense, we've got quite a showdown ahead of us. Rarely have two teams had such overwhelming strengths clash.

But it's not the very first time a great offense has met a great defense. Which brings us to these questions: What happens in such impacts? Does the defense win the day? Or does the offensive team's high skill level overwhelm?

Yep, it's time for a history lesson. Let's take a look back in time to see what happened in recent playoff series when great offenses and great defenses clashed and the matchup was at least somewhat even on paper.

source : http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=OffenseDefense-080604
by John Hollinger