Each of the remaining four teams in the NBA playoffs has learned in their own way, the demands of post-season basketball are such that you have to play both more intelligent and harder to advance through the tournament. It is not enough to run a beautiful set and create an open look by the mere power of brain-thinking, you have to hit people. The Boston Celtics currently look like favorites to win the championship because they reliably make the best shots as well as the high level of those who make all these good shots. Dawg that among them. The tip of the spear here is definitely Marcus Smart.
Smart Missed Game 1, a dirty affair where the hits lost three-quarters yet delivered a 12-minute perfect, barley basketball and drowned the Celtics. “It simply came to our notice then. They’ve just come out and punk us in that third trimester, “said trainer Ime Udoka, acknowledging the dialectics of the brain. “We saw three quarters and how well we won those quarters, and we knew we could be better off if we matched their physicality.” Boston saw Miami take a quick 18-8 lead in Game 2, before locking in and making 57-27 in one-and-a-half quarters. It was as surprising as Maverickian Margin’s suggestion: Boston hit nine of their 11 first-quarter three-pointers, while Miami shot 15 for 3 in the final 20 minutes of the first half. So what’s the change?
The obvious answer here is also correct: Al Harford came back from the shortest case of COVID-19 recorded in human history and Marcus Smart re-entered the lineup. Jason Tatum is undoubtedly one of Boston’s best players, Jelen Brown is playing with unprecedented control, and Grant Williams is becoming a skill giant. But Smart is the player who fundamentally changes the Celtics in both offense and defense. Boston shot off the ball on Thursday, although the most significant change for them in the games was their defensive performance. It started with smart. Defensive Player of the Year is a violently interrupted defender, one who never voluntarily leaves an inch of space or allows any simple, even instantaneous, horrific action to happen on his watch without any harassment. Boston’s defense is not complicated at all – unlike what the Warriors have to do to contain Luka Donsick. They know exactly who to keep open and who to push off the line. They prioritize murder transition crime. They change most of the time, and blitz and trap as a strategy of speed change. They know where they need to go and how to do it as a five member unit. It all starts with Smart’s point-of-attack defense, which is very impressive to look at every time. The result was an 86.5 half-court offensive rating for Miami and 18 turnovers.
The Celtics can also play without someone you can easily classify as a traditional point guard, although this difference is only significant in that the amount of credit cannot be easily shared with a player. Because the whole team moves the ball well. This was the team’s single biggest change when it suddenly turned into a world-beat in January. They start to pass easily, the ball stops getting stuck and everything flows from there. The Celtics have good enough shooters that a relatively simple change has opened up everything. Like defense, it starts with smart. He called on Celtic for this exact change earlier this year, and the team recreated itself in its image. Smart logged 12 of Boston’s 28 assists last night, most notably the following, where he surpassed the entire hit defense. Smart’s shot failed him early in the game, although he helped bury Miami for good in the third quarter when he was aggressive and It seemed to be embarrassing Defenders of Miami.
Smart took a team-high 22 shots last night, which he scanned as not ideal, as Tatum and Brown Hall are the team’s most talented offensive players. For both Harford and Grant Williams’ career nights, the Celtics have won important play-off games during their races, and leading the smart line is consistent with their vision of how they want to win the game. They have appropriately punished the great NBA defense without theories about their shot delivery. As long as the ball zips around the perimeter and nothing is forced, the weak spots will be located and pushed. If the hit overplay is tatam, the Celtics are naturally set up to determine which strategic choice they make and pay their opponents. This is why the Celtics have been such a fun team to watch. If you can skip the names of the people routed for the jersey and the team, that’s probably a tough question so I won’t regret taking the chalk. Those guys, You can enjoy the most harmonious basketball game team in the playoffs. You can enjoy Marcus Smart Experience.