As far as being lucky we didnt lose by 15+ goes. First off, it doesn't matter if you lose by 10 or 15+. Secondly, we weren't lucky, we are good. The deck was stacked against us with being on the road against a good team with some home cooking and out best player on the bench with foul trouble. We had a rough night shooting, especially open 3s by our two best shooters. They got a lot of good bounces on rebounds like we did when they played us in Carver. All of that and we stayed close enough to play the "what if" game.
I agree about our defense being frustrating how easy it breaks down at the end of the shot clock. But other than that, and a handful of other breakdowns that all teams have, we played pretty good defense. Our guards close good and recover quickly. It's kinda fun to watch. The shot clock became a factor a lot last night for them. Our teams lately have rarely made teams work for shots. I think that's a sign of good defense when the shot clock is run out so often. I'd say it was a combination of really good defense for most of the game, but still too many mental lapses here and there.