Marcus Smart is shooting jumpers as he inches closer to return

WALTHAM -- Marcus Smart is set to miss his 11th straight game on Wednesday night against the Clippers as he continues to recover from right hand lacerations. The reserve point guard was spotted going through an intensive shooting workout at the conclusion of practice on Tuesday though and Brad Stevens indicated that the 23-year-old remains on track to return to the lineup in Boston's first game after the All-Star break.



The Celtics are 6-4 without Smart, so they have managed to stay afloat without their top reserve. However, his approaching return should serve as a breath of fresh air for a Celtics defense that has shown some significant signs of regression over the past couple weeks. Without Smart and fellow reserve point guard Shane Larkin (sore knee), the Celtics have been torched for 104 points or more in three of their last four games.

Brad Stevens reflected on the cause of those struggles on Tuesday afternoon.

"First of all, against Toronto, we need to play fast," he said. "Obviously, with Shane and Smart, they will play roles against those guys. Against Washington, I didn’t think we played as well and we won the game. Against Indiana, we played terrible out of the game but then had one of the best third quarters we've played all year. And then Cleveland we followed that up with one of our best first quarters we've played on the offensive end. We just haven’t put it all together against really good teams. This was a stretch of games that you knew would be very tough, but we didn’t play as well as we'd like. That's probably the most concerning thing. Not surprising, but concerning."

While plenty of the Celtics struggles were self-inflicted during these games, a lack of depth in the backcourt loomed large in those defeats. The Raptors, Pacers and Cavs all like to play small and the Celtics roster trends big at nearly every position, especially after Greg Monroe was signed as a free agent last week, instead of a wing. That has created a lot of mismatches as the Celtics have all really had three true guards on the roster to work with (Irving, Rozier, Brown) over the last two weeks. That problem gets solved with Larkin and Smart back in the fold.

"I think that we're leaning on a lot of guys to do a lot of things," Stevens explained, "And hopefully we get better at that as we go along here. But I do think that we will be better."