If Rajon Rondo’s absence has taught us anything in the last two weeks, it’s the value of getting right to the point. No need to pound the ball into the parquet and wait for the offense to set up.

The Boston Celtics are playing better basketball right now without Rondo. They are not, however, a better team without their All-Star point guard.

There is a big difference.

The Celtics head into tonight’s game against the Denver Nuggets riding a six-game winning streak since Rondo went down with a season-ending knee injury on Jan. 25 against the Atlanta Hawks.

As of Saturday, the six vanquished foes were a collective 18 games under .500. But anyone who has followed the Celtics all season, even Rondo’s most ardent supporters, has to admit they are playing better than they have since the 2012-13 campaign got under way.

That season, we should remind you, was unfolding in dismal fashion before Rondo went down. Boston was 20-23 and, with the exception of a six-game winning streak in early January, was playing uninspired basketball.

Whether Rondo was there or not. playing Miami, their first Rondo-less opponent, would have snapped the Celtics out of their malaise, even if only temporarily.

But their level of play has actually improved since then, over the course of a stretch that included also-rans Orlando and Toronto and culminated with one of their best games of the year in Thursday’s blowout of the Lakers. Based on this year’s trends, it’s safe to assume the Celtics would have resumed sleepwalking through the schedule after the Miami game, even though five of the six games were at home, until they encountered Kobe Bryant and a national TV audience.

Indeed, Boston has been playing more inspired, but more importantly, it changed its offensive philosophy. Without Rondo around to create, Doc Rivers has stressed more pick-and-rolls and more ball movement, particularly side-to-side ball movement.

The biggest beneficiaries of this change have been Jeff Green, Jason Terry and Leandro Barbosa. The latter is just getting more playing time. The first two are getting their hands on the ball more.

Green is getting it earlier in the offensive sets and finally seems emboldened to take it to the basket more consistently, which is all Celtics fans have wanted since he came to Boston.

Terry is also getting more minutes but is actually shooting less while seeing his field goal percentage and assist totals increase significantly. Perhaps not having Rondo dominating the ball is making him more selective.

The change in Terry’s game in particular illustrates why Rondo’s detractors are reveling in this winning streak. Rondo’s penchant for dribbling, dribbling, dribbling at the top of the key, waiting to set up a two-man game with Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce, can be maddening. The Celtics have undeniably been more efficient offensively these last half-dozen games and, frankly, more entertaining.

But it won’t last.

For one thing, the teams the Celtics have rolled over these last dozen games don’t exactly play suffocating defense. Four of the six rank in the bottom half of the league in points and field goal percentage against.

Virtually no one has tested Boston’s suspect ball-handlers with full court or trapping pressure. The Los Angeles Clippers harassed them in the fourth quarter of last Sunday’s game and nearly erased a 15-point deficit. The Celtics looked lost without their best ball-handler and playmaker, rushing shots and turning it over with alarming regularity before Vinny Del Negro’s inept coaching bailed them out.

It was a preview of what is to come, in the playoffs if not sooner.

The Celtics face a tough Denver team tonight, although the Nuggets are a bit defensively challenged themselves. Before the All-Star break, they’ll face one of the best defensive teams in the league, Chicago. Then they head out for their annual February vacation West Coast trip.

Teams should have enough game film to draw up an effective game plan against Boston’s new look offense. Most likely, those game plans will involve disrupting the passing lanes and pressuring Boston’s ball-handlers to quicken their pace and force turnovers, which already have been higher than they were with Rondo running the offense.

Opponents may be reluctant to play that kind of defense regularly in Feburary and March, but they won’t be during the playoffs. Teams such as Miami, Chicago and Indiana are all capable of playing that way and playing very well. And the most effective weapon the Celtics had to combat that kind of defense, the man who has been their best playoff player for at least the last two years, will be sitting on the bench in street clothes.

Some will still insist they don’t miss Rondo, and for those people, the issues they have with the point guard go beyond his play on the court.

That’s fine. We can debate whether Rondo’s personality clashes with Boston’s rebuilding plans another day. But suggesting the team will ultimately be better off without him at the end of this season, when it counts, is clearly missing the point.