Boston Celtics Marcus Smart levels up defensively: “there’s no limits to where I can go”

https://www.masslive.com/celtics/2019/11/boston-celtics-marcus-smart-levels-up-defensively-theres-no-limits-to-where-i-can-go.html




Boston Celtics Marcus Smart levels up defensively: “there’s no limits to where I can go”




Today 4:33 PM




NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 26: Marcus Smart #36 of the Boston Celtics cheers from the bench during the second half of their game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on October 26, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)




By John Karalis | JKaralis@masslive.com




SAN FRANCISCO -- The best way to describe what Marcus Smart means to the Boston Celtics might be the instant reaction of his teammates to questions about his defense.

It’s usually one of those little snort laughs when they picture what the question is about. Sometimes it’s an “oh, man” or some kind of similar phrase to properly relay incredulity.

Case in point: new teammate Kemba Walker.

"Aw, it's amazing, man,” he said when asked what it’s like to share the floor with a defensive player of Smart’s level. “He's a stud. He takes pride on that end of the floor, and it's fun to watch. It's fun to be a part of.”


He’s earned these reactions, especially this season where Smart has reached a new level of importance to his team. According to Cleaning The Glass, the Celtics are nearly seven points worse per game when Smart leaves the floor. Their offense is 12 points per 100 possessions worse and their defense gives up five points more per 100 possessions with him on the bench.

Those numbers obliterate his past statistics. The small sample has something to do with it, but right now they scream in agreement with the 10-game eye test.

Marcus Smart is playing some of the best basketball of his professional life right now.

“I’ve always though he has a rare ability to take the ball away from somebody or go up vertically and block a bigger guy, or even we went back a few years ago when he guarded (Paul) Millsap in the playoffs,” Brad Stevens said after the team’s morning shoot-around in San Francisco. “I remember when he guarded Millsap in New York in a game we lost and it was like maybe we can just play small and he can match up for fours. So we’ve been doing that for a long time. There’s just more need to now because we’re smaller than we were with Al and Baynes and those guys.”


Aside from the game against Washington, Boston has been playing a strong, connected defense. Everyone has done their part, which is partly why Smart has been thriving.

“His versatility defensively has helped but it’s also helped that he has other versatile defenders around,” Stevens said. “When he can start a game guarding a guard and Jaylen Brown can switch on to him or Jayson Tatum can switch onto him, Kemba, whoever, that really helps… so the versatility as a group I think accentuates Marcus’ strength as an individual defender.”

Smart is not even 26-years-old yet, so he’s just now entering his prime. His own individual improvement has to be factored in alongside the team’s defensive scheme.

“It’s a little bit of both,” Smart told MassLive. “When a team is playing good defense, we all feel good. Everybody feels good about themselves, including me. For me, that’s even more dangerous on the defensive end because I already feel good about myself. If I can feel even better, then for opponents, it’s going to be really tough for them.”


It’s been especially tough for opposing big men, as Washington’s Mo Wagner found out in the second quarter Wednesday night. Smart rose up to meet Wagner twice at the rim, a signature defensive moment that elicited one of those snort laughs I mentioned earlier from Daniel Theis.

“We know that Marcus doing all of those things, diving on balls, blocking shots,” Theis said of the blocks on his teammate on the German national team. “He never quits on a play.”

Even Smart laughed about the play, but for a different reason.

“It’s just funny because I know guys see me, 6’3”, and I’m not jumping and dunking on everybody so they think I’m not as athletic, which I’m pretty athletic,” he said. “I love when guys think they’ve got an advantage over me, especially in that situation where you have a seven-footer thinking he’s just going to pretty much put me in the rim. That’s the type of moments I live for.”

Smart has already taken a turn on some of the biggest bigs in the league and come out on top. In the past, conversations like this have led to him calling himself a stretch-6. This time he called himself something different.


“I consider myself when I get into those situations like a super saiyan, like Goku. I can reach another level,” he said, referring to the Dragon Ball anime character with an ability to reach a god-like power level. “There’s no limits to where I can go, so I gotta continue to keep pushing myself and helping this team in each and every way that I can.”



bob
MY NOTE:  Good thing they told me what a Goku and Saiyan were, I had NO idea.

You know, it's funny.  When Marcus Smart was growing up in Flower Mound, TX and going to Oklahoma State, I'll bet it never occurred to him for even a New York Second that he had actually been born to wear Celtic Green.  He is a true Celtic, like the way Paul Pierce was and still is.  In a sport that is a business in which players look after themselves first, and I can't blame them for doing that, you have to appreciate players like Marcus Smart and IT, players that feel like being called "a Boston Celtic" is a great honor, bestowed upon but a worthy few.



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