Tag: marcus smart

Marcus Smart lists the six toughest players he’s ever guarded

Marcus Smart’s defense has him in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation but who are the players who make that job the toughest for him?

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart has been making waves with his defense this season, and for those who know his game, that’s saying a lot.

Known as one of the league’s grittiest, most intense defenders, he consistently impacts the game with out-of-this-world hustle plays and the seeming ability to appear as if out of nowhere, disrupting inbounds passes or layup attempts.

This season, the Texan has elevated his defense to an absurdly flexible level, taking on defensive assignments that stand a head or more above him with what would seem a fatalistic relish if not for the eye-popping results he’s been getting from doing so.

An early Defensive Player of the Year (DPoY) candidate — an award almost exclusively given to big men — because of his position-defying defensive proclivities, Smart is very aware of just how impressive his performance has been this season, and isn’t afraid to brag a bit.

In fact, he penned an essay on the popular player-driven website, The Player’s Tribune, in which he broke down the toughest defensive assignments he’s had in the NBA.

Beginning with some context, the Flower Mound native credits his much older brothers with sparking his lifelong tendency to fear no opponent (or hard surface) since:

“A lot of the way I play today can be attributed to those games with my brothers. I had to be clever. I had to compensate for my lack of … pretty much everything … by playing smart and doing all the little things most guys don’t like to do.

Diving on the concrete for a loose ball. Bodying up on somebody way bigger than me. Getting beat up, run over, knocked down … and then getting back up.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

With his familiar self-confidence, Smart continues by effectively daring the entire NBA to test him while diving into five specific players who have given him trouble over the years.

None of whom should surprise:

Los Angeles Clippers wings Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry and Los Angeles Lakers big man Anthony Davis.

Those four ought to be on anyone’s “hard to guard” list but one of the five might raise a few eyebrows.

At least among Celtics fans who have somehow missed the ties between the two players from their two seasons sharing a roster.

Kyrie Irving.

Irving and Smart share a friendship larger than the issues that plagued Boston last season. In part due to the bond they share in losing family in their brief stretch as teammates.

Whatever fans feel about the Duke product’s exit, it’s clear Smart holds his former teammate in high regard both on-court and off.

“There are a lot of things that make Kyrie’s game unstoppable, explained the former Cowboy. “But his ability to ad-lib and come up with things on the fly is special. That’s why I like to call Kyrie’s moves “last-minute moves.”

“It’s like, when the shot clock is winding down and he’s gotta do something. As a defender, you’re running through Kyrie’s arsenal in your mind, narrowing down what you’ve seen him do and what he might pull out at that moment, based on where he’s at on the court.

He’s short on time, so his options are limited. Then literally at the last second, he hits you with something you weren’t expecting. And you’re like, Dang … how did he even think of that?”

While many are still raw from a decision that was quite far from last second, Boston’s longest-tenured guard clearly harbors a great deal of respect for his All-NBA friend (and now, opponent).

Respect is a common theme among all the players listed by Smart, who describes Leonard as “the most unstoppable player in the league right now” despite ongoing health issues limiting his game and availability.

Leonard’s new teammate George is, according to Smart, someone who “will stay hot all night if you let him” and a potential terror once he and Leonard “really get going together”.

Curry, of course, is a threat from almost anywhere on the court, which the Celtics’ unofficial captain emphasises is what makes him such a tough cover.

“[Steph]’s liable to shoot from half-court and hit it. And he doesn’t need a lot of space to get his shot off. He’s got a quick trigger. Even when you’re right up on him, that little inch of space you leave because you think you’re close enough? You’re not.”

As he does with all his listed examples, Smart highlights the rudiments of his defensive strategy against them, noting with Curry, he tries to use his relatively larger size as a weapon.

“He’s running around, coming off screens, trying to get open looks. So it’s my job to be physical with him — knock him off his cuts and get over every screen.”

The Brow, being seven inches taller and 25 pounds heavier, isn’t so responsive to such an approach. Instead, Smart uses Davis’ size against him.

This approach has been very fruitful for Smart to date, and has been a not-small factor driving his DPOY candidacy.

“Big guys are taught to not bring the ball down low against guards because, unlike bigs, guards can sneak in there and take it. … I try to force guys to their weakness. And even though A.D. has a good handle, especially for a 7-footer, that’s not his strength. So I’m staying up on him, pressuring him, trying to make him be a ballhandler.”

The defensive specialist even goes out of his way to add a sixth player to his five-man list of hard-to-guard opponents, fitting for a guy who joking refers to himself as a “stretch six”.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, the reigning MVP, is in a class by himself:

“But Giannis different … with his wingspan, the way he can manipulate the ball and get you chasing it one way before coming back with it — because he’s also quick like a guard, so he can cross you if he catches you leaning … man, it’s special.”

To be fair, many of these figures would say the same of Smart’s coverage, which has opened some already-wide eyes even further in this still-young season.

While there’s plenty of time for others to close the gap in the Defensive Player of the Year race opened by the guard swallowing up players much larger than his 6-foot-3 stature, the award is Smart’s to lose for now.

Check the full article linked here for an in-depth dive into just how he manages some of those assignments with gusto; it’s absolutely worth the read.

Feisty Celtics survive 41 points from white-hot Hield, win 103-102

The Boston Celtics survived the Buddy Hield show thanks to Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart.

Although they couldn’t seem to contain Sacramento Kings guard Buddy Hield, who unleashed canned a career-high 11 threes against the Boston Celtics en route to a 41-point night, the Celtics would trade baskets with the Kings for much of the game and lean on strong performances from Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart to pull out a narrow win (103-102) over their Western Conference foes.

The trio scored 61 of the team’s points, good for 59.2% of the total, with each continuing to do the things that had made them successful on offense to this point in the season.

With Brown attacking the rim and using his explosiveness to his advantage, Tatum showing off his combination of footwork and shooting touch and Smart finding the mark with a series of runners and floaters, Boston was able to keep up with Sacramento’s Bohemian baller.

However, it still took two clutch shots from Smart at the end of the game — and a defensive play by Robert Williams III on the final possession — for the Celtics to secure the win while shorthanded.

With star guard Kemba Walker sidelined with a neck sprain and starting center Daniel Theis out with an illness, Smart would start at point guard and make a number of plays as a scorer and facilitator on his way to 17 points (on 7-12 shooting) and seven assists.

Kanter, though unable to defend on the perimeter as well as Theis and contributing to the reason Hield was able to be open on a couple of plays, bullied Kings center in the post on his way to 13 points (and nine rebounds).

As exciting of a game as it was for Celtics fans, the most riveting experience was the NBA debut of rookie point guard Tremont Waters. Seemingly already beloved by the locker room, community and Celtics head coach Brad Stevens, Waters had a rough night shooting the ball but consistently showed off his basketball IQ.

Waters — whom Brown has nicknamed “Young Oldhead” to highlight his on-court savvy, finished the night with seven points (on 2-7 shooting from the field), three assists, one steal, two blocks and two turnovers in 19 minutes.

The Celtics may have Walker back for their next game, as the guard could have potentially played against the Kings had Boston not wanted to take precaution.

However, the team that they’ll be facing — the Brooklyn Nets — will be missing a familiar face in star guard Kyrie Irving, which makes the game easier to win but nullifies some of the emotional energy that would surround it.

Marcus Smart offers refreshing perspective on last year’s team

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart has learned from last season’s struggles and believes he’s pinpointed the source of the team’s collapse.

“Mental health is a big issue in a lot of sports. That what was going on.”

Those are the words of Boston Celtics leader Marcus Smart, the team’s longest-tenured player despite being 25-years-old and in his sixth NBA season, who took the time to discuss what went wrong behind-the-scenes with a team pegged as favorites to reach the NBA Finals last summer in a continued effort to create understanding for those who were on the outside looking in.

A group that includes everyone that wasn’t officially a member of the Celtics organization.

Much has been said and written about the team’s lack of chemistry and leadership, their clashing egos and what may have even been an overabundance of talent. However, while those on the outside put the bulk of blame on Kyrie Irving’s character flaws because he was the team’s leader, players and front office executives have presented a more complex set of issues as the reason for Boston’s underwhelming 2018-19 season.

Celtics head coach Brad Stevens blamed himself.

Just days ago, Celtics president Danny Ainge said that Boston’s issues ran much deeper than Irving’s role within the team’s collapse when discussing the possibility of giving Irving a tribute video upon his return. A message that he also delivered in June.

In October, Smart came to Irving’s defense in light of the latter revealing that he was grieving throughout the season after his grandfather passed.

Smart, who lost his mother to cancer in 2018, could relate to Irving in ways that few could. Though he had insulated his friend from criticism on previous occasions, on Monday, Smart would take a deep dive into the heart of Boston’s issues last season and seemed to excuse — more or less — Irving’s behavior again.

While making an appearance on The Lowe Podcast with ESPN’s Zach Lowe, Smart notes that this season has been “fun” for the Celtics whereas last season was not.

“I think it was just hard for everyone last year,” Smart says. “Including myself.”

“I was dealing with my mom’s passing,” admits Smart. “Everybody has their own little individual thing that they were dealing with.”

Revealing why those issues only served to strain relationships rather than strengthen bonds, Smart says that teammates “were afraid to talk” to one another.

“You didn’t know how to talk to anybody,” Smart explains. “Growing up as young men you were taught you don’t want to show your emotions. You don’t want to cry. There’s this stigma that crying is not manly [and] talking about your feelings is not manly when that’s not true.”

The term toxic masculinity is used to ascribe the stigma surrounding behaviors that are considered effeminate regardless of their benefit to mental or physical health. Even behaviors that may not benefit a person’s health at all but are just interests that they hold.

That term comes into full focus when passing through Smart’s podcast appearance and when thinking about the individual issues that may have existed in the locker room last season, it’s easy to see the role they played in creating a barrier between teammates. Even in a day and age where mental health is being destigmatized.

Irving and Smart dealing with the losses of loved ones. Gordon Hayward going through the ups and downs, both mentally and physically, of trying to return to his prime form.

Terry Rozier and Jaylen Brown playing for new contracts but concerned they wouldn’t receive enough opportunity to showcase their abilities. Ironically, the returns of Irving and Hayward would directly effect their minutes and thus their earning potential.

Each of the aforementioned situations have varying levels of distress associated with them but each situation was undoubtedly stressful and none of the players felt like they could open up to each other about it.

As Smart notes, “that hurts you in the long run.”

This season, Rozier (though now playing in Charlotte) and Brown have new contracts. Hayward has played exceptionally. Smart is likely still distraught by his mother’s passing but he now has had more time to heal from his loss. It’s difficult to determine if Irving is in a better place emotionally but physically, he now plays in Brooklyn.

Kemba Walker, Grant Williams, Enes Kanter and Tacko Fall have brought a jovial aura to the team. It doesn’t hurt that this season, Boston gets to play the role of the underdog rather than the hunted, as last season’s slow start was the first blow dealt to the team’s potential chemistry.

The Celtics have also learned from last year so, when situations arise like the untimely passing of rookie point guard Tremont Waters’ father, they know how to support one another. How to talk to one another.

Ultimately, this team isn’t just different from last season on paper. They’ve grown as people and men, which is often an effect of going through adversity.

Whether or not the Celtics make a deep run into the playoffs, lose in the first round or miss the postseason altogether, they’re much better equipped to make it through their struggles as a unified front rather than splintering apart as they did last season.

Marcus Smart took issue with Nuggets’, NBA’s response to abusive fan

A season after the NBA faced a longtime problem with fans crossing lines with verbal abuse, Marcus Smart finds himself entangled in another such incident.

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart is all too familiar with fans abusing their near-court access to verbally abuse players on the court.

Before last season’s spotlight on the problem highlighted the ongoing issue across the league, when the Texan was still playing NCAA ball at Oklahoma State, an attendee (it strains the word to call them a “fan”) got into an altercation after Smart claimed the attendee hurled a racial epithet at him.

Investigations were conducted, Smart was suspended and his word was not taken at face value, with the emphasis focused on the fact the Flower Mound native laid hands on the man with a shove, per ESPN.

Then, in the 2018-19 season, a series of similar incidents around the league brought a long-time problem — not just in basketball but most sports — to the forefront when several attendees were banned by the NBA for using derogatory terms.

Such unsavory words were directed at the likes of Russell Westbrook, who was fined $25,000 for making threats back at the attendee, and DeMarcus Cousins, who had a similar experience in an exchange with a minor (per ESPN’s Tim Bontemps while playing against the Celtics in Boston last season.

Now, Smart finds himself in the news again after a similar situation unfolded in the team’s 96-92 loss to the Denver Nuggets on the evening of Nov. 22.

Hurling himself after a ball as he often does, the ex-Cowboy found himself tangled up in a chair as he sought to extricate himself from the front row, with a nearby attendee verbally abusing him.

“My foot got stuck in a chair, and the fan told me, ‘That’s right, stay on the ground, get on your knees,'” Smart explained (via ESPN). “Excuse me? You know what I’m saying. I just told him, ‘Listen, just watch the game.”

This would be where, if last season’s incidents were to have made a lasting policy change, security should have immediately removed the attendee to de-escalate the situation.

Their response, according to Smart, was little more than a casual glance.

“I told them who it was. They just looked at him and didn’t even say anything to him,” Smart said of their response. “… Probably if I was a superstar, they probably would’ve did something for it. It is what it is.”

While the Celtics locker room leader is correct in that players like Cousins and Westbrook did get some satisfaction after the fact, the latter didn’t avoid getting fined for his verbal response to the taunts. The league was, at least at that moment, earnestly seeking to redress such issues while also evidently looking to send a message about how players should respond to such abuse.

So, although it may be understandable why players like Smart and Westbrook are losing their cool, attention should be turned back on the responses from the league and individual franchises when one is hearing about them in the media.

It’d be naive to believe these incidents are the only ones happening as it doesn’t take much effort to uncover accounts of players describing similar issues they experienced but did not report.

Eventually, that sort of abuse grates on people, their anger reaching a boiling point in a very relatable way.

Yet, such events have the potential to spiral out of control when fans abuse their proximity to live game action to behave inappropriately, whether racially-charged epithets or drinks are involved. Such moments could easily come back to haunt the league just as it’s trying to navigate a number of high-profile problems that could derail very costly investments to long-term plans.

What was the difference between Smart’s most recent altercation and Westbrook’s incident compared to Cousins’? A prompt investigation that took the then-Golden State Warrior’s complaint seriously, ejecting the attendee, followed up with a swift and fair punishment.

For Westbrook, that only happened after a media circus made the incident an eyesore and? for Smart, nothing at all has happened. At least yet.

No fine and no response from the league or the Denver Nuggets franchise. If the league and its teams refuse to act, sooner or later, a player is going to respond in anger, and it will be the worse for all involved.

The policy of the NBA and each individual team should be to treat all such claims by players seriously, with timely and appropriate punishment (as was the case with Cousins’ incident).

There should be no place for such language in NBA arenas, or for that matter, any workplace.

“[This is] a problem in the league that we gotta fix, because if we retaliate to protect ourselves, we’re the ones getting in trouble — they’re not — and that’s not right,” offered Smart on the thorny issue.

He’s not wrong.

Ranking the Boston Celtics’ first-round draft picks in this decade

The Boston Celtics have drafted some of the most notable players in the league in the last few years.

The Boston Celtics were able to add some key players through first-round selections. However, all of their picks in the first round did not pan out the way they hoped.

2013: Lucas Noguiera

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Well, at least the Celtics were smart enough to draft this project and then send him to the Raptors. Unfortunately, part of that deal saw Lou Williams also go to Toronto for John Salmons and a 2015 second-round pick. The seven-foot Noguiera somehow has played in more playoff games (13) than regular-season contests (10). He’s back in Spain now, a bad pick and a good player to rid yourself of, quickly

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Patrick Beverley becomes first player to get fined for flopping since 2016

Of course it’s Patrick Beverley that breaks the streak.

The NBA had a flopping problem earlier this decade that it tried to solve by fining players $5,000 for each time they flopped after receiving an initial warning.

It didn’t really work. Players kept flopping and still flop to this day. It’s part of the game now and, after a certain point, the league just flat out stopped issuing the fine.

The last player have a fine publicly announced for flopping was Marcus Smart on April 21, 2016 for acting doing his best Jazzy Jeff impression after simply being boxed out by Kyle Korver.

Things were quiet on the flop fining scene until Saturday. Patrick Beverley just took things too far Friday night against James Harden and the Houston Rockets.

He was fined after he acted like James Harden performed an exorcism on him with a jab step.

The concept of fining a player for a flop is a bit much, but you can’t really blame the league for this one. That was ridiculous — even for Beverley’s standards.

This is the first time we’ve seen a flop fine in three years, but it might not be the last time we see it in this year. We’ve got a lot more national television Patrick Beverley left to go this season.

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Marcus Smart, Defensive Player of the Year?

The Texas native has been putting together one of the league’s most impressive performances in any year, never mind this one.

Patrick Beverley did not take kindly to the suggestion that Marcus Smart’s defensive intensity matched his own after the Los Angeles Clippers’ 107-104 win Wednesday night, and for good reason.

It’s not even close to being on the same level.

Now, before we get the torches and pitchforks out in the Flower Mound native’s defense, don’t presume that it’s Beverley who’s in the superior position here. While the Arkansas product is indeed one of the league’s most tenacious defenders, what Smart is doing this season is unlike anything we’ve ever seen from him before, and if we’re being honest, most players.

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The 6-foot-3 guard has been playing well beyond his stature on that side of the court, regularly guarding much bigger players all the way up to near 7-footers with considerable — at times, even remarkable — success, as noted by The Sporting News’ Carlan Gay.

For example, 6-foot-11 Giannis Antetokounmpo, arguably the hardest player in the league to guard, was limited to just five points while guarded by Smart. Despite being 6-foot-4, Smart forced three turnovers in their sole meeting this season. Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic didn’t fare any better, logging just four points on 1-of-5 shooting when covered by the Oklahoma State product.

More recently, he held one of the league’s top offensive threats in Kawhi Leonard to just three points and 1-of-7 shooting in Boston’s most recent loss.

Kevin Love, who has given Smart trouble in key moments in the past, has even taken note of the improved efforts against big men the undersized guard has been having.

“Oh, [Smart is] tough. … What they lack in size, they make up in effort,” Love noted (courtesy of Yahoo Sports’ Darren Hartwell). “[T]hey’ll put him on the top player on every team. He’ll guard LeBron [James], … Giannis [Antetokounmpo], … James Harden, … Steph Curry … He can guard anybody 1 through 5, and he’s a difference-maker for the team.”

The six-year veteran has been putting in work behind the scenes, too.

“I scouted plays for Kevin Love for a long time now, so I picked up on tendencies and I’m such a great defender that I believe in myself and I’m always going to go with myself a hundred percent of the time,” Smart said of his efforts to cover big men like Love (via MassLive’s John Karalis).

“It’s about pride at that point and you got to dig down. So I always call the double team off every chance I get and try to take care of it myself.”

His former teammates and peers are taking note, with some former Celtics even openly calling for him to get the Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) award just a month or so into the season, despite the fact the sole non-big man winner in recent years in none other than Kawhi.

Smart is holding his opponents to 28.8% from deep and just 33.1% overall when he guards them while helping his team to own the sixth-best defense in the league. The Celtics have a 99.2 defensive rating with him on the court, and just 103.7 without.

It is undoubtedly far too early in the season to crown the former Cowboy the presumptive DPOY so soon into the 2019-20 NBA season. But with more and more performances like those he’s been turning in against such formidable opponents (and most of them in wins, which never hurts), it’s looking like the award is his to lose.

Smart’s tendency to take himself out of the game as much or more than any opponent with the collateral damage such consistent herculean efforts does to his body remains an ongoing threat to the former sixth overall pick’s health and availability.

But Smart has shown growing maturity in more ways than the defensive intensity that evidently opponent Patrick Beverley was unhappy to hear of on the evening of Nov. 20 and may take his foot off the gas to preserve his bodily integrity when push comes to shove, unlike in past seasons.

Not that that will improve the mood of Mr. 94 Feet, as Beverley is sometimes known.

Can you blame him?

Celtics’ Marcus Smart thriving as a defender when switching onto bigs

Boston Celtics wing Marcus Smart, despite standing at just 6-foot-4, has done a phenomenal job defenders players much larger than he is.

Boston Celtics wing Marcus Smart, despite standing at just 6-foot-4, has done a phenomenal job defending players much larger than he is.

The 25-year-old made All-Defensive 1st Team last season but has taken another leap forward with a bigger role this year. His ability to switch on to centers has been a focal point of Boston’s defensive identity and something that allows coach Brad Stevens to use his five-man lineups in a different way than almost any other team in the league.

We looked at all of the opponents that Smart has guarded so far this season, then isolated just the players who are classified as big men by Cleaning the Glass.

Based on this research of 146 possessions, Smart has allowed just 16.3 points per 70 possessions. These players are shooting 36.7 percent from the floor on 30 attempts.

For example, look at when Dallas Mavericks’ Kristaps Porzingis attempted three post-up attempts against Smart on November 12. The 7-foot-3 big was not able to convert any, however, despite the ridiculous size mismatch.

The largest workload came when he guarded Kevin Love for a total of 31.1 possessions during the game Boston played against Cleveland on November 5.

While Smart was guarding Love during the third quarter, the five-time All-Star was left completely flabbergasted to the point where he was forced to take an undeniably bad pass.

Smart, however, tipped the ball and forced a turnover that Robert Williams was able to recover. The guard leads his team with 2.8 deflections per game so far this season. Last season, he recorded more total deflections (228) than all but just one player in the Eastern Conference.

But even more impressive was when the Celtics played the Bucks early in the season on October 30.

Smart matched up against the reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo for 16.9 possessions. The superstar scored just five points and managed only two attempts from the floor. That means Smart held the Milwaukee sensation to less than half of the field goal attempts Antetokounmpo has taken against all other defenders.

Antetokounmpo had three turnovers, was impacted by his defensive presence all game and he even ended up tumbling to the floor amidst a brief scrap with Smart.

Here is what the scrappy defender said after the game, which was a rematch of the Eastern Conference Semifinals (via NBC Sports):

“Every time I’m boxing him out, he’s trying to throw me out the way. It lets me know he’s frustrated, I’m getting to him, especially when he’s not getting to the ball, or he’s not getting to the rim, or he’s not getting the shots that he usually gets.”

Smart also forced New York Knicks star Julius Randle into a frenzy and picked his pocket on the perimeter, creating a transition opportunity for the Celtics.

Other notable matchups against bigs for Smart include his strong showing against Dario Saric. The Phoenix Suns starter took four shots (including a three-pointer) when guarded by Smart but missed all of them.

Another highlight was when the 6-foot-4 wing was able to record a block over 6-foot-11 big man Moritz Wagner in a game against the Washington Wizards.

Smart offers Boston a grittiness that Stevens can trust against and he has played a crucial role in their hot start and placement atop the standings in the East.

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Despite the buzz about Boston, don’t expect trades any time soon

Dubbed “the spiritual successors to the Warriors”, will the Boston Celtics iteration of switchy defenders and high-powered offense be enough to succeed in the postseason?

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Don’t expect a trade to upgrade the Boston Celtics coming any time soon, particularly while the team sticks to its winning ways.

Coming into the season, the team’s big man rotation was widely seen to be a step below what the team would need to compete for a title, with larger, more skilled big men on the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks looking like insuperable barriers to a deep postseason run.

One 10-game win streak later and those qualms have subsided significantly, particularly with Boston showing it could bounce back against the equally-surprising Phoenix Suns and former center Aron Baynes on Nov. 18.

There’s still legitimate reason to doubt the team’s current frontcourt will have what it takes to get past some of the better teams in the playoffs, where opponents will have more time and impetus to gameplan ways to use size against the team.

As the Ringer’s Jonathan Tjarks notes, the Celtics elevation of two third-overall picks (in consecutive NBA Drafts), Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, to trusted top offensive options and combining them defensive tour de force Marcus Smart (who can switch onto even the strongest and quickest bigs in the league) has somehow worked.

And not only worked, but created one of the more potent offensive two-man lineups in the league despite Tatum’s up-and-down nights and overall development.

“The Celtics are this year’s closest thing to the spiritual heirs of the Warriors,” explains Tjarks.

“They don’t have the same star power, but their key players all fit into similar roles. Kemba Walker, like Steph Curry, is a smaller guard who can bomb 3s and play on and off the ball, and they surround him with big wings who can defend multiple positions, space the floor, and create their own shot. Their best lineup, when everyone is healthy, doesn’t feature anyone above 6-foot-8: Kemba, Smart, Tatum, Brown, and Hayward.”

Tatum’s showing signs of putting things together and considering much of this has been going on without All-Star forward Gordon Hayward — out until December with a broken hand — while Kemba Walker has quietly inserted himself into the fringes of the MVP conversation.

Perhaps the wins shouldn’t be so surprising.

But the skepticism about the frontcourt remains, and quite possibly for good reason. While the Warriors indeed did not have a dominant big functioning in a rim-protecting, pick-setting, back-to-the-basket sort of center anchoring their formidable defenses, they also had a much more lethal array of shooters, arguably the greatest ever assembled in recent years.

Can Boston hope to compete for a title with such a notable step down on the offensive end? If not, is there a player who makes sense who could be had on the trade market?

According to senior ESPN writer Brian Windhorst, if there is, it won’t involve any core players — Walker, Hayward, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum or even Marcus Smart — from the team’s core. Smart and Hayward have been floated often as potential options in recent months.

That leaves the comparatively smaller salaries of players like veterans like Daniel Theis, Enes Kanter, and rookies Romeo Langford and Vincent Poirier, all of whom make $5 million per season or less, and all but Langford happen to be bigs shoring up the already- shaky frontcourt rotation.

Finding a player worth moving so many contracts (or on a deal so cheap) that makes sense to pull the trigger on will be no easy task and with so many new signings for the team in the offseason, any such deal would likely have to wait until at least Dec. 15, when certain recently-signed deals begin to become tradable according to league rules.

For now, the strategy of the “spiritual heirs of the Warriors” will be to refine and evolve the Dubs approach to winning while small, strangely zagging back to what’s worked in the past as East contemporaries ‘zig’ big.

Will it be enough to stay in the conversation of belonging in the league’s elite?

We’ll just have to wait to find out.

Marcus Smart angling to play against the Clippers despite ankle injury

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart is a warrior, as they say, so there’s no surprise he’s angling to play against Kawhi Leonard’s Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday.

On Monday night, as the Boston Celtics were closing out their matchup against the Phoenix Suns, Celtics guard Marcus Smart injured his ankle while running baseline to make a defensive play.

The injury would take Smart out for the remaining nine minutes of the game.

However, following Boston’s victory, Smart would tell reporters that his ankle had “minimal swelling” and he’s “able to still shift, and pony and move side-to-side” (per MassLive’s John Karalis).

“But everything is okay,” Smart says. “I should be fine to play the rest of the trip.”

With the gladiator-like mentality that players often possess, Smart was quick to mention that he would play on Tuesday if there was a game in a cliche that’s often repeated by players, even if the team doctors disagree.

“If there was a game tomorrow I definitely would play, for sure,” Smart declared. “But better to be safe than sorry. They’re still working on it so we don’t risk anything. We’ve got a day off, get the treatment I need, and be ready for the next game.”

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Against Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on Wednesday, Smart’s absence would be impossible to ignore given that he’s the team’s most staunch defender.

While the dynamic Gordon Hayward remains out after having surgery to repair his fractured left hand, Smart has started in his place. Consequently, he would likely draw the assignment against one of George or Leonard while wing Jaylen Brown tested his defensive fortitude against the other.

Though there are a number of perimeter players that will be thrown at the Los Angeles Clippers’ Star duo, only Smart, Brown and forward Semi Ojeleye — due to his experience and relative effectiveness in defending reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo — seem as if they’ll be difference-makers defensively. That said, counting out Jayson Tatum — who has played well on that end this season — or rookie Grant Williams could prove foolhardy.

Los Angeles’ little brother franchise is one of the most formidable teams in the league when fully healthy so there will be fireworks in Staples Center when the Celtics come to town.

The only question is if Smart will be in a uniform, or a suit, when he sees them.