The Celtics defense has been a wall. How would scouts and coaches attack it?

It isn’t easy to beat these Boston Celtics. It’s even harder to do it multiple times.

Only four teams defeated the Celtics twice this season, thanks to a top-five defense that led the league in blocks and point differential, as Boston posted an NBA-leading 64-18 record. With their playoff series opening Sunday against the Miami Heat, can any opponent find a way to top the Celtics four times and win a series?

The Athletic approached a panel of coaches and scouts at various levels — including the NBA — to find out how they would approach the task of lining up against the Celtics.

In part one, they explored how the Celtics offense works and how to gameplan for it. In part two, they go deep on the Celtics defense, from how to attack its coverages, crash the glass and deal with newcomers Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis. Our panel consists of two scouts from NBA teams who were granted anonymity so they could speak freely and five coaches from various basketball backgrounds and levels.

Our coaches:

• Sean Martin, an assistant coach at American International College, Springfield, Mass.
• Patrick Murphy, head coach at Longmeadow High School, Longmeadow, Mass.
• Terrell Hollins, head coach at Concord Academy, Concord, Mass.
• Trey Witter, assistant coach at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.
• Donald Hadesman, former assistant coach of the Windsor Express, Awful Coaching on YouTube.

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

NBA scout A: The Celtics are so good at switching up defenses on the fly. It’s elite communication from the coach to the players and a lot of teams — they don’t even know what the hell is happening. It’s like, “Oh no, now they’re in a press, then they’re switching 1-through-4, then the next play switching 1-through-5.” I do like what (head coach Joe Mazzulla) has done to take teams away from controlling the clock and getting a two-for-one at the end of quarters by pressing and basically stealing that possession to get the extra shot.

They’re so good at slowing down opponents’ offenses to make them stagnant and force them into one-on-one isolations. But in the playoffs, when you have more time to prepare, will teams be able to take advantage of that? Can they create indecision at the point of the screen to take advantage of the switching?

Hollins: Jrue Holiday is somebody that can guard all over the court, so it’s not really a mismatch to exploit. The versatility of their defense is what would worry me the most as an opponent.

NBA scout A: You can’t let them switch up under you. Whether it’s rejecting screens, flipping screens, you gotta get past their switches. Low-angle screens have hurt them in those empty corner pick-and-rolls.

Hadesman: Porziņģis, I’m throwing him into every ball screen imaginable. The Celtics are gonna run drop coverage with him every single time. In the Hawks game when they switched him onto Dejounte Murray, that did not go well. But I think switching is great. Like…