Karalis: Marcus Smart getting back to being 'Marcus Smart' helped Celtics get back to being themselves

Marcus Smart heard the talk. 

“The injury (was) probably affecting me, I lost a step, all kinds of things, and it is what it is.” Smart said after Boston’s win over Portland. “I know what I can do, my teammates know what I can do, the league knows what I can do, and that’s just extra motivation for me to go out there and prove it.”

Smart has been proving it over and over again as the Celtics season has slowly turned around. Ever since a decidedly bad game against the New Orleans Pelicans (the game that featured that half-court heave off a jump ball), Smart has been at the emotional helm, helping steer the C’s in the right direction. 

Sometimes it has been with his signature defensive energy. Sometimes it’s with his passing. Sometimes, it’s just gathering his young teammates and settling them down in moments where things might have unraveled in the past. 

“We respect him. We respect everything that he's accomplished and what he brings to the table,” Jayson Tatum said. “When Smart is talking, we're gonna listen because we know it's for the best and everybody respects him.”

While Smart gets the respect of his team, the goal for Smart, and any team, is to respect each other. This Celtics team has always gotten along off the court, but for a long stretch of the season, that didn’t seem to translate onto the court. That’s changed, and it’s no coincidence that it has changed as Smart has been more of a constant in the lineup.  

“I think you can see the difference. We’re all holding each other accountable - everybody at both ends of the floor,” Smart said. “We’re just trying to play basketball the right way and give ourselves a chance. ... “For us to hold each other accountable starts with me, being the defensive leader on this team and one of the leaders on this team. If guys see me holding my own self accountable, that should be no excuse for anybody else.”

That hasn’t been an easy road for Smart. This season has been tough for everyone, and Smart is no exception. He has had very visible struggles. He’s been very un-Smart-like for longer than usual, which is what prompted all the talk Smart heard in the first place. 

“He just missed eight weeks with an injury. It’s hard to come back and be yourself after that,” Stevens said. “Especially when you’re on a minutes restriction, and then you’re off and you’re going to have some ups and downs.” 

The downs haven’t been quite as frequent, and the ups have been a lot more evident recently. Smart drew one of the more impossible assignments in the NBA when he was asked to guard Damian Lillard. Everyone knew this would be the key defensive matchup, and Smart did an admirable job on a potential MVP candidate.

“I thought he guarded Lillard as well as anybody I’ve seen as far as handling those screens,” Stevens said. “A couple of the shots Lillard made were not on him and weren’t certainly due to him. I thought he impacted him as well as you possibly could. But he’s been really good in the past couple of weeks.”

The most enduring question of this season is “what’s real?” 

How much of what we’ve seen this season is something that translates to the future, and how much of it is fluky? Every team has to answer this question. Every team has to figure this out before they figure out how to move forward. 

For a while, that question enveloped Smart. Was he suffering a defensive drop off? Is his mind not right anymore? Has his shooting abandoned him again? 

Well, he’s shooting 38.1% on 3-pointers since the All-Star break. His post-break true shooting percentage is at 60%, up more than 8% from his pre-break shooting, so maybe the slump wasn’t real. 

He’s doing the little things again, reading what his opponents are doing and anticipating their moves. Even something as simple as missing the final free throw on purpose has gone better than the last time he needed to do that. 

“I was put in that similar spot not too long ago and I hit nothing but the backboard, so I just wanted to make sure I hit the rim,” Smart said. “They had no timeouts, so a miss was definitely needed there for them to go full length of the court.”

He seems to be thinking clearly, too. Against Portland, his defensive prowess was on full display. Diving on the ball for a loose ball on one end of the floor, missing, and running back to the other end to get the steal anyway was as “Marcus Smart” as any play we’ve seen.

“(I have to) just go out there and be me,” he said. “I know I’m a great player, just go out there and continue to be that great player no matter what. Not for me, but for this team. For this team to be great, I have to be me on both ends of the floor. I have to be that defensive stopper that I know I am. I have to be that floor general on the offensive end. I have to take those open shots, make those open shots and be able to create for others and knock down and make plays. For me to be that and do that, it’s only going to help this team.”