During his pregame news conference Tuesday, Joe Mazzulla was asked by CLNS Media’s Noa Dalzell about how defensive struggles in basketball often are blamed on laziness or lack of effort, while a cold stretch on offense is more likely to be waved off as a shooting slump.

Mazzulla called that “the most profound statement in my three years (as Celtics head coach),” then proceeded to offer a full-throated defense of Boston’s defense, which has faced criticism during the team’s four-losses-in-six-games slump.

“Yes, it is so easy to blame effort as opposed to ‘just make a shot,’” Mazzulla said before the Celtics’ New Year’s Eve matchup with the Toronto Raptors at TD Garden. “You know, our expected defense is No. 1 in the last 10 games, and our layup percentage defense is No. 1 in the last 10 games, and our expected points per shot defense is, like, No. 3 in the last 10 games.

“But you know what our 3-point percentage is? Twenty-eighth.”

Clearly, Mazzulla believes the Celtics’ problems lie more on the offensive end, even after they were burned by multiple defensive breakdowns in Sunday’s 123-114 loss to the Indiana Pacers. Boston shot 29.6% from three in the game, with Jayson Tatum, Al Horford and Derrick White going a combined 6-for-31 (19.4%).

Mazzulla was quick to note that the C’s “do have to play better, though, on both ends of the floor.”

“Let me be very clear: There’s 10 to 12 possessions a game where we absolutely have to be better on the defensive end of the floor,” Mazzulla said. “I want to make sure I’m 100% clear on that. But it’s very, very easy when things aren’t going well to blame defense, effort, and it’s very, very hard to let your brain or your heart rest in ‘We’ve just got to be better offensively.’ And so you have to fight those two things.”

The rebuilding Raptors represented a get-right opportunity for the Celtics ahead of their first Western Conference road trip of the season. Toronto entered Tuesday’s game at 7-25, having lost 10 straight games and allowed 135 or more points in each of its last three. It also was missing two of its top three scorers in RJ Barrett (illness) and Gradey Dick (illness).

The Celtics struggled to contain Raptors big man Jakob Poeltl in the team’s previous meeting, however, allowing Poeltl to score 35 points on 16-of-19 shooting in a game Boston won in overtime on a buzzer-beating Tatum 3-pointer. The Celtics’ best rim protector, Kristaps Porzingis, missed his third straight game Tuesday with an ankle sprain.