When Celtics training camp opened, Marcus Smart was a strong candidate to start alongside Kyrie Irving in the backcourt. However, once the 23-year-old volunteered to come off the Celtics bench, he made the decision easier for Brad Stevens.
"Coach Stevens called me in and he was talking to me, and debating whether to start me or take me off the bench," Smart said back in October. "I told him in that meeting to bring me off the bench: 'That's OK. You don't have to start me.'"
Even with Gordon Hayward going down on opening night, Smart has remained a bench mainstay. He has filled in for Irving and Jaylen Brown when they’ve been hurt, but otherwise, he has served the role as a sixth man.
For a while, the Celtics got away with a traditionally big and young starting lineup look on the wings. Stevens has mixed and matched a bit, going small with Marcus Morris over Aron Baynes based on the matchup, but the bigger look has largely stuck and has clearly been working. The Irving/Brown/Tatum/Horford/Baynes unit has a great net rating (+13.5), and Stevens wasn’t going to mess with that mix regularly in the midst of a 34-10 start to the year.
The situation has changed over the past 15 games though. The offense has been in freefall (25th overall over past 30 days), while the defense has started to drop off too (7th overall). The Celtics are 6-9 over that stretch, and it could have been far worse if it were not for squeaker wins over Washington and Portland.
While the offense has been an issue all year long (and likely will continue to be), the defensive drop off (22nd in last five games) has to be the more concerning issue for Stevens in the interim. He has seen some serious regression on that end in just the past week, as the Celtics have allowed 111 points or more in three of their last four games. You could probably count the number of good defensive quarters they’ve played over that span on one hand.
“I’ve said all along I don’t think we’re all that we were cracked up to be during our 16-game winning streak and its probably hit us more in the last month than it hit us before. Teams have outplayed us,” Stevens admitted Wednesday night. “It’s going to be a tough ending if we don’t change a little bit and I’ll look at what I can change as well. I think we’re probably due for some of that.”
So where do the problems lie? In the starting lineup, it’s dependent on the matchup most nights. Baynes and Horford are a rock solid backline against non-smallball lineups, even though Horford has looked sluggish lately. Baynes is limited on the perimeter and has been a net negative on offense (39 percent shooting in last 10 games), but he contests drives and rebounds well. Irving’s defensive limitations are well known and have become more glaring in the past few weeks, but that’s part of the package with the All-Star. He’s going to be playing 32 minutes every night no matter what, so it’s up to Stevens to try to protect him from getting exposed too much by opposing point guards.
With those realities in place, the ability for some change among the starters comes on the wing for Boston. Brown and Jayson Tatum have looked overmatched at times in recent weeks. Brown has struggled to contain top wing scorers while speedier and stronger small forwards guarded by Tatum have helped to break down the C’s defense repeatedly. Both guys struggle to get around ball screens and pindowns, putting Boston’s bigs in bad spots time and time again.
One player who does not have trouble getting around screens is Smart. In fact, he’s among the best in the league. He’ll fight through everything, blow up plays, and generally make life miserable for his opponents. He has been a nice defensive weapon for Stevens off the bench all year long, but the fact is, his presence in the starting lineup has always made a lot of sense from a defensive configuration standpoint.
When Hayward went down with a season-ending ankle injury on opening night in Cleveland, I wrote this about Stevens’ potential options for a Hayward-less starting lineup:
One choice would be to go with a bigger traditional starting lineup with Jayson Tatum at small forward, Al Horford at power forward and Aron Baynes in the middle. The more likely option, however, is downsizing with Marcus Smart. The fourth-year guard would start in the backcourt with Kyrie Irving, pushing Jaylen Brown to the 3. It’s the group the Celtics started the second half with against the Cavs and the one that is best situated to play the small-ball lineups the Celtics will see on a regular basis.