How a 6-foot-4 guard became one of the most feared defenders in the NBA

SITTING ON A bench inside the Boston Celtics' training facility, with afternoon sunlight pouring through 18 championship banners that hang next to tall glass windows along a far wall, Jrue Holiday gestures toward the parquet practice court just a few feet away. Then toward the weight room on the other side of the court. Then toward his head, legs and feet.

It's midday on April 19, and the Celtics guard has just finished his workout. Jaylen Brown lingers nearby on the court, getting up shots. Music thumps. Outside, commuters zoom by on the Massachusetts Turnpike, which ferries thousands every day into downtown Boston, located about 7 miles east. As he points to his extremities, he continues to share his philosophies on his longtime NBA calling card.

The more he talks, a palpable intensity emerges.

"I don't like getting scored on," he tells ESPN. "It's that simple. Competitive nature, to me, is winning every possession or in everything you do. So an offensive possession, I also try to win, but defensively, I feel like getting one stop against an individual is, it's like, damn man, you stopped me.

"But when you get multiple stops against somebody? It can kind of take them out of the game. It can take their heart away. It can completely change the landscape of the game if that happens. So I think I started realizing that -- and realizing how fun it is to try to take the heart out of my opponent."

He smiles.

How fun it is to try and take the heart out of my opponent.

"I grew up in a family of athletes where that's all they tried to do to me," he says. "It's literally all I know. And it was OK to do that. It was fun."

Holiday's parents, Toya and Shawn, both played basketball at Arizona State in the early 1980s. All three of their sons -- Jrue, Justin and Aaron -- reached the NBA. Their daughter Lauren played college basketball at UCLA. And throughout the siblings' childhoods, defense was the only non-negotiable in the household. Good offense would come and go, they told their kids, but defense could never waver. It was a way to always make an impact, they said, a way to earn minutes. Shawn for years taught them specific techniques and principles that had been passed down to him. But more than that, he wanted them to love it, because he did.

As Holiday talks, energy pulsates throughout the city. Thousands have traveled from across the world to compete in the 129th Boston Marathon. Elite runners dart across sidewalks and side streets, staying loose in shakeout runs along the Charles River Esplanade, where pink cherry tree blossoms dance in a light spring breeze.

But the day before the world's most famous race began, the Celtics embarked on their own long road toward a potential repeat championship, a feat not achieved since Bill Russell, arguably the most dominant defender in NBA history, suited up for the Celtics in the 1960s.

That journey continues Wednesday night in Boston, where the Celtics trail the New York Knicks 1-0 in a pivotal Game 2 of the second-round series. Holiday played in Game 1 of the series, an overtime loss by the Celtics, after missing three straight games with a right hamstring strain. And the Celtics are glad to have him back.

"What Jrue does for us, it's elite," Celtics center Al Horford said. "The impact that he has on our team, you can't measure it."

"I mean, the intangibles are endless," Celtics coach Joe Mazzula said of Holiday's impact. "The mentality that he plays with, the selflessness that he plays with, but the physicality and the toughness and defensive versatility: his ability to guard different positions, his ability to pressure the basketball, his ability to take tendencies from individual [players] and just make winning plays."

Holiday is 34 now, in the 16th season of an NBA career during which he has won two Olympic gold medals, two NBA championships and a slew of defensive honors.

In three of the past four annual NBA general manager surveys, Holiday was voted as the league's best perimeter defender. He has five times finished in the top eight in voting for the Defensive Player of the Year award, tied for the most by any guard (with Michael Jordan, Gary Payton and Tony Allen) since the award was first handed out in 1982-83. He has been named to the All-Defensive first or second team in six of the past seven years. NBA head coaches say he's a nightmare to game plan against. Several stars -- including Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard -- have called him either the NBA's best defensive guard or its best defensive player.

In many ways, the forces that shaped Holiday's defensive prowess can be traced back more than a half century and 5,000 miles away, to a man Holiday says he has never seen play but who watches Holiday's every game -- and in him, he still sees some of himself, even all these years later.

DWIGHT HOLIDAY LOOKS out the window of his 11th-floor condominium in a Honolulu high rise. There's the Diamond Head volcano out one window. The Pacific Ocean out another. "It's a great view," says the 74-year-old, who has lived in Hawaii since the 1970s, when the former 6-foot-4 guard starred for the University of Hawaii men's basketball team.

With Dwight, the Rainbows posted a 23-5 record in 1970-71 and a 24-3 record the following season, reaching the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. The team became known as the "Fabulous Five" long before Michigan's "Fab Five" teams of the 1990s entered the zeitgeist.

"I was our best defensive player," Dwight says with pride. "I had to guard every No. 1 scorer."

Dwight is Holiday's uncle, and he can still, to this day, rattle off the names of players he faced.

Florida State's Ron King, a shooting guard who led his team to the national championship game and went on to play for the Kentucky Colonels in the American Basketball Association? "I shut him down," Dwight says.

Oregon State's Eddie Boyd, a combo guard who became the No. 5 pick in the 1972 NBA draft? "I shut him down."

Pepperdine's Bird Averitt, a shooting guard and the 1975 NCAA scoring champion? "I contained him," Dwight says, "but I didn't shut him down."

Dwight was the second oldest of nine siblings, and by eighth grade, he started to pick up basketball, becoming the first in the family to veer toward sports.

"This all started with me," he says. In 10th grade, a coach named Len Wilkins entered his life.

Wilkins had learned the game from watching Pete Newell's powerhouse California Golden Bears teams in the 1950s, when they reached two NCAA title games and won in 1959. Wilkins saw how Newell's teams always played aggressive defense, pressing teams, pressuring the ball, fronting the post. Wilkins wanted to bring those elements to the high school teams he coached.

He taught Dwight how to stay low to the ground, how to move his feet.

"Watch the body of the individual, not the face," Wilkins told him. "Wherever that torso goes, then you follow."

Dwight thrived.

"He was a big-time athlete, quick, had a good basketball IQ and you could coach him and he would listen and ask questions," said Wilkins, now 91 and retired in Montana after almost 50 years coaching high school and college basketball.

The year Dwight graduated from Hawaii, he brought his brother Shawn, who is 13 years younger, to the islands. They played basketball every day, and Dwight passed down the defensive principles he had learned from Wilkins.

After college, Shawn and Toya started a family, first Justin in April 1989 and then on June 12, 1990, another son, Jrue, who first picked up a ball when he was 2 years old. He and his siblings grew up in gymnasiums, and when it came to teaching basketball, Shawn wanted to pass down the family lineage.

"I REMEMBER ONE practice vividly," Aaron Holiday, now a Houston Rockets guard, tells ESPN. Aaron was on the court after practice at Taft High School in Los Angeles, he remembers, and Shawn was teaching him how to slide his feet -- "how to not have them hit each other when you're sliding, how to keep 'em separated, just the basic technique of guarding."

Toya and Shawn would tell their children that if they wanted the ball, well, they should go get it. Jump a passing lane. Secure a defensive rebound. Make something happen. "Everybody can play offense," Toya said. "I really do believe that."

But defense was a choice, they said. Maybe they had an off day shooting the ball, but defense should never fade. "And guess what?" Toya would say. "It's so much more fun to have a steal and you go down and slam dunk."

Holiday wasn't especially vocal growing up, his parents said, but they knew competitiveness burned inside him. "Piss him off," Toya said. "You'll see."

Growing up, there were fierce games of one-on-one in the driveway with his talented siblings at their home in Rancho Cucamonga, California, about an hour outside of Los Angeles.

By high school, Holiday had established himself as one of the most dominant two-way players in the nation, a point guard who could score with ease and guard every position on the other end.

"The way he is able to still defend and cut people off and not draw fouls is unbelievable," Aaron said.

He led his team to three California state titles. As a senior, he averaged 25.3 points, 12 rebounds, 6.8 assists, 4.6 steals and 2.4 blocks and was named the 2008 Gatorade Player of the Year.

"People make a big deal out of two-way players these days," he said. "It should be very natural to want to do both."

At UCLA, Holiday started every game as a freshman on a team that went 26-9 and reached the NCAA tournament's second round. He also met his future wife, Lauren Cheney, who would become one of the most decorated American soccer players in the history of the sport, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women's World Cup champion. She played basketball through high school. She understood the game. And her philosophies on soccer were similar.

"Jrue's superpower is his selflessness," she told ESPN. "And I think that's all defense is about -- the willingness to do the hard things to make it easier for everyone around you. It's a choice to work that hard. It's a choice to decide, 'Hey, I'm not going to let this person beat me, or if they do, they're going to have to try really, really hard.' That's true to who he is and everything that he does."

In 2009, after one season at UCLA, Holiday was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers with the 17th pick, and playing on a veteran-laden roster, he found that defense was a way to earn minutes, just as his parents had once preached. He said one of the first times he earned real time was because he was picking up defenders full-court.

His mindset was straightforward, he said. "I want to lock you up on the defensive end, and then I want to score on you on the offensive end. Whoever I'm going against, I want it to be a really hard night on both ends of the court."

He quickly recognized playing defense could set him apart.

Holiday carefully studied film, looking for small nuances and tendencies of opponents. He attacked the weight room. And in the offseason, and for as far back as he can remember, he engaged in marathon defensive drills where he'd have to stop offensive players in a one-on-one half-court setting, one after another after another.

"I feel like that's the way to condition yourself," he said. "So by the third person, you're exhausted and then you have two more people that you have to go against -- and the guys that I play against aren't scrubs."

The accolades rolled in. By his third season, he became the youngest player in 76ers history to be named an All-Star. In 2018, he received the first of his six All-Defense honors. In August 2020, then-Portland superstar guard Damian Lillard said on "The Old Man and the Three" podcast: "To me, he's the best defender in the league. Like, out of the guards, I think he's the best defender."

When Holiday joined the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020, he began working with Charles Lee, a member of the Bucks' coaching staff. Lee watched in awe how Holiday always seemed to employ some combination of his quick hands, his fast feet and his strength to make a game-changing defensive play, always at just the right moment.

"I was blown away by the student of the game that he was," Lee told ESPN. "He had impacted winning a lot, and when he got to Milwaukee he was still so curious about how he could continue to grow."

In some cases, Lee said, "you're trying to drive, and he starts trying to pull the chair on you while also getting this offhand swipe on a ball."

He saw Holiday employ the tactic so often during the Bucks' 2021 NBA title that it earned a name among the Bucks' coaching staff.

"We would call it 'The Holiday,'" Lee said.

WHEN BRAD STEVENS became the coach of the Celtics in the summer of 2013, Holiday was still in Philadelphia, having earned his first All-Star appearance the previous season. Stevens, now the Celtics' GM, remembers clearly what it was like trying to game-plan for Holiday.

"You avoided him," Stevens told ESPN.

"You tried to put people in positions where he wouldn't be impacting the play, especially late in the game. But that's easier said than done because he's going to be guarding your best players."

After hearing that comment, Holiday smiled. "That's what I love. I love knowing that."

For years, Stevens said, he asked then-Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge what it would take to land Holiday.

Every time, the reply was the same. "I'd love to," Ainge told him. "Unfortunately, the team he's on loves him, too."

In the fall of 2023, Stevens made the dream a reality, acquiring Holiday from Portland, where he was traded in the move that landed Lillard in Milwaukee.

Just days later, Stevens looked down onto the practice court and watched one of the Celtics' coaching staff members, Phil Pressey, a former NBA guard, face Holiday in a drill on the right wing of the floor.

"I saw Holiday get into him and push him back five feet and it looked like [Pressey] couldn't even function," Stevens said. "And I thought, 'Well, there you go, we've got a shot.'"

In Holiday's first season with the Celtics, the veteran guard made Stevens' prediction look prescient. In the first round, when Holiday guarded Miami's Tyler Herro, he held him to 33% shooting and 25% from 3-point range. In the Eastern Conference semifinals, Cleveland's Darius Garland shot just 7-of-22 from the floor and 1-of-7 from deep against Holiday. In the Eastern Conference finals, Holiday held Tyrese Haliburton to 3-of-10 shooting (1-of-7 from deep). And in the Finals, when Holiday faced off against Kyrie Irving, he limited the Dallas star to a single trey.

The Celtics cruised to their 18th NBA title, Holiday's second.

"I don't think anybody at any position would prefer to be guarded by Jrue Holiday," Stevens said. "And then ask the coaches who they don't want to be caught attacking in an isolation late in a shot clock. Same answer."

ONE DAY AFTER explaining his defensive philosophies at the Celtics' training facility, Holiday shows them in action -- a timely tutorial in Game 1 of his team's first-round playoff series against the Orlando Magic. The lesson begins about two minutes into the third quarter inside an anxious TD Garden in Boston, with the seventh-seeded Magic holding a one-point lead at halftime.

At the top of the key, Holiday faces 6-10 Magic forward Franz Wagner.

Half a world away, Dwight sees Magic big man Wendell Carter Jr. step forward toward Wagner, preparing to screen Holiday, but Holiday binds himself to Wagner like a magnet. Carter soon aborts his plan. Then, Wagner tries to drive right, but Holiday stays attached to his hip. Clearly flustered, Wagner then veers into the lane, fires an errant layup attempt that hits the top of the backboard. Holiday tips the loose ball to Brown, who corrals the rebound, then passes back to Holiday.

On the other end, Holiday splashes a step-back 3-pointer, his first points of the night.

On the ensuing possession, Holiday guards Orlando's Paolo Banchero, another 6-10 fleet-footed forward. Again, Holiday essentially merges his frame with Banchero's, denying a screen attempt by Carter. Like Wagner on the previous play, Banchero drives right, and like Wagner on the previous play, Banchero misses a layup. Holiday tips the ball to Celtics guard Derrick White, who scores a layup on the other end, capping a 7-0 Celtics run.

Later, with 7:32 left in the fourth quarter, Wagner once again brings the ball up court, and Holiday moves toward him, his hands a flurry of action. Wagner self-combusts, dribbling the ball off the back of his foot, and Holiday picks up the loose ball, dribbles up the floor and drills a transition 3-pointer, giving the Celtics a 10-point lead.

As he trots back, Holiday unleashes a primal scream as the Garden erupts in excitement and appreciation. In the third quarter, Holiday scores nine points, adds four assists and two steals, and the Celtics take control of the game, outscoring the Magic 30-18 en route to a double-digit win.

"He blows up all the things you're trying to run offensively," said Magic coach Jamahl Mosley.

Holiday holds the Magic to 2-for-11 on field goals as the primary defender and forces five turnovers. He holds the Magic's top two scorers, Banchero and Wagner, to a combined 1-for-9. Holiday matches up with Banchero 23 times, the most of any Celtic. In those 23 matchups, Banchero scored four points on six shots.

"He just cares about winning," Stevens said. "Here's a guy that's a two-time [Olympic] gold medalist, a two-time NBA champion, several times all-defensive team, and he comes here and just says, Hey, I'm part of a really good basketball team. How can I help? There's not many guys with his accomplishments and with his ability to carry us that would be willing to do that."

Throughout the game, Dwight watches Holiday maintain a low center of gravity, blow through screens, force offensive players to go where he wants them to go.

"I see things in Holiday's game that I taught Shawn," Dwight says.

Holiday has never seen footage of his uncle play, and though they text each other, they don't talk much about their similar styles.

What Holiday hopes, perhaps most of all, is that how he plays -- how he was taught to play -- lives on.

"Hopefully I can influence people to do more on the defensive end," he said, "because I do think there is a market for it. You can be in the league for a long time adding value by being a defensive player, just because so many people don't."