2017-18 Celtics Season Thread

Smart knew how to get in the head of Harden and knew his tendencies to probably go in and take the elbows. You're not giving enough credit to Smart here. Smart forced those turnovers, not the other way around.

This isn't the first time Marcus has made plays like that at the end of games that directly led to wins.

Smart played great D and was a big reason for the TOs, but he didn't force Harden to throw Elbows back to back.  The whole team frustrated him. Guys like Tatum blocking a shot just before that.  At best the blame and credit is 50-50.  You just want to give all the credit to Smart.  I bet Houston's Media is going to blame Harden for that loss.

You pointing the finger so quick to Harden is a complete injustice for the way Smart guarded him. Smart probably changed the win probability of that game in the last 20 seconds of the game by at least 60 percent with those forced turnovers.

Not many players have the skill set to guard a player like Harden the way he did or the IQ to know how to guard Harden with the game at hand. You mostly act like Smart was mostly a victim of circumstance.

Sometimes yes, a player does deserve all the credit. Like a walk off homerun for example. If the Houston media wants to be ignorant of the defense of Smart, then that's their agenda.

I'm done arguing about it. If you want to see things your way then I won't change that.

Yes great defense can NEVER create stupid decisions on offense. Yeap. I can clearly see the logic now. I really am done now. I think I made my point clear enough.

I'm still not over how awesome that win was.

Edit: I've seen people saying Smart flopped on those fouls and he did not. Harden hammered him.

Smart flopped and Harden fouled him. They aren’t mutually exclusive. You can’t tell me Marcus couldn’t keep his feet on those had he wanted to. The second flop was dangerous when we already had the lead with 3 seconds left... had the ref not called it Harden had a clean run up the court.

I’m cautiously optimistic that Rozier is about to take that big step forward the second half of this season. His 3 point shooting is at 36% right now - he’s seemed to have found a more consistent stroke from there. The big key for him is finishing around the rim. His FG% is still around 38% which just isn’t good enough. He’s started dunking on the break (which i guess Kyrie gave him guff for not doing) and he’s seemed more under control on other drives. He can get to the rim, we know this, and he’s a solid free throw shooter so if he can start finishing at the rim then he could be the scorer we need off he bench to go with Morris. Truthfully, that’s what he needs to be. It’s the player he should be and it’s the path he seems to be on. It’s easy to forget how young these kids are when they come into the league and it’s easy to forget this is only his 3rd season.

Yeah that was a bit hyperbolic. Smart is the best defender in the league other than Kawhi and Draymond, I really doubt Bell is up to that level.

I vote we move on from the Bell and Smart stuff. He was referring to the fact he’s all hustle and defense at a position typically more suited for that: it makes sense. People don’t have to agree and that’s fine. It was only brought up bc i mentioned the two of them playing together. Let’s move on.

On a positive note there is only 1 team in the league with fewer wins than the Lakers at the moment. IMO the ping pong balls owe the C's a bit of luck and a pick between 2 and 5 this year would suffice.

This happens over and over again. He gets into somebody's shirt, irritates the hell out of them and then, at crucial times, they react in ways that hurt their team. This is who Smart is, this is how he leverages his tenacity and defensive chops. He's in the same class of player as KC Jones, Bruce Bowen, Tony Allen, and dozens of others who've had long careers because they were superior defenders. Stopping a team from scoring is just as valuable as scoring yourself.