The Detroit loss is on you, Marcus Smart

Yes, it is fair to pin a loss on one player when that player has to sit at home due to a dumb play in the last game.

Let's hope that the playoffs are not missed by this one game.

wide clyde wrote:Yes, it is fair to pin a loss on one player when that player has to sit at home due to a dumb play in the last game.

Let's hope that the playoffs are not missed by this one game.

Gonna say the same thing if we miss the playoffs by one game and the ping pong balls get us a top three pick? Which could happen.

Implied in the criticism is the acknowledgement that they wouldn't be in the playoff hunt if wasn't for Mahcus.  He's the defensive leader of a team that relies on its defense.  He hasn't been called for the ticky tack fouls that rookies usually get hit with, which can be interpreted as a mark of respect by the officials.

Maybe he was frustrated, maybe he was tired, but we've seen what kind of player and what kind of person he is, so this member of the jury votes Not Guilty - it was unintentional. He was a victim of soicumstance.

who cares. kid made a mistake and he was punished.

in the long run, he will grow from this and it will make him better in the long run.

Smart has been compared with Dennis Johnson, at least on this board.

It's easy to forget that D.J. wasn't the best soldier during the first half (or so) of his career.  It took him a while to go through stages of maturing and finally developing into a dependable, driven pro.

It happens.

Sam

I would say the men on the court lost the game myself, but to each his own.

fact is , you can't lose to a lesser team at home and expect to make the playoffs at this point.

we need 9 out of the next 13 games to even be in the running now.

a pretty hard task considering the schedule.

even IF Milwaukee continues their implosion, Miami, Charlotte and Indiana are all ahead of us now.

Hi,
I don't think you can put it on MS. The whole team brought the loss upon themselves. As Jackie Mac said about Celtics in the last minute of regulation - they're stuck in mud.

AK

I was able to watch the game, for the most part. Poor execution at the end is what done us in. We are sure missing IT. Get well soon.

If Marcus Smart had played and performed to his normal stats this game would have been won with no overtime last night.

After all this team has done this season with culture change, coaching improvements, player improvement, etc the playoffs are very important in the total re-build process. Even with Thomas missing a bunch of games, a playoff spot is very important, in my opinion.

Relating to Smart: Yes, he is young. Yes, he paid the penalty for his hit on Bonner. Yes, the team did not play its best but that happens often when one of your most important starters is out. I only know of Dennis Johnson when he played for the Celtics. Yes, Smart will hopefully learn a lesson. Yes, ping pong balls could fall the Cs way if they do not make the playoffs, but no one will bet on that idea after previous ping pong ball successes for the Celtics.

wide clyde wrote:If Marcus Smart had played and performed to his normal stats this game would have been won with no overtime last night.

After all this team has done this season with  culture change, coaching improvements, player improvement, etc the playoffs are very important in the total re-build process.  Even with Thomas missing a bunch of games, a playoff spot is very important, in my opinion.

Relating to Smart: Yes, he is young. Yes, he paid the penalty for his hit on Bonner. Yes, the team did not play its best but that happens often when one of your most important starters is out.  I only know of Dennis Johnson when he played for the Celtics.  Yes, Smart will hopefully learn a lesson.  Yes, ping pong balls could fall the Cs way if they do not make the playoffs, but no one will bet on that idea after previous ping pong ball successes for the Celtics.

I want as many ping pong balls as possible

Not his fault the Celts lost.

Dboss

The pure and simple fact is that this team is banding together with a shoestring roster, and even the slightest loss can put them in jeopardy.  When I said that Smart's presence would almost certainly have shaved at least a point of Detroit's score in regulation, I also observed that Isaiah Thomas's presence would almost certainly have provided the Celtics with at least one more point in regulation.

In making my remarks, I tacitly hoped that the presence of either Isaiah or Smart would have tiipped the scales in the Celtics' favor.  But suppose Smart had played "bombs away" with paltry success and/or Isaiah had turned into such a defensive revolving door that Reggie Jackson had scored twice as many points.

It's an exercise in futility to try to predict what the outcome of a game would have been had Marcus and/or Isaiah been able to play.  The only predictable thing is that the dynamics of the game definitely change whenever the rotation is altered.  Sometimes they change for the better (just as the team dynamics did after Rondo and Green left); and sometimes they change for the worse.

All of this conjecture is hypothetical and thus has entertainment value only.

Sam

Good point Sam as that was one of AB's better defensive nights, he was in Reggie's face.