BSJ Game Report: Boston Celtics 110, Golden State Warriors 88 - Marcus Smart, Celtics defense, start road trip right

Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics' win over the Golden State Warriors with BSJ insight and analysis. 

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics' first-half defense was A-MA-ZING. They held the Warriors to 32 first-half points and led by 16 at the half despite struggling a bit with their shooting. They got complacent in the third quarter and gave up 37 points, 19 to Jordan Poole, but recomposed themselves in the fourth, putting together a 17-7 run in the middle of the quarter to pull away for good.

Box Score

HEADLINES

The defense is the story of the night: They held the Warriors to 37.2% shooting, 22.9% from 3, and just 19 assists. I’ll dive deeper into this defensive effort separately. 

Marcus Smart, point guard: 20 points while shooting 4-7 on 3-pointers and a team-best 8 assists. Smart was hitting, but he still didn’t shoot too much (12 shots overall). He found Jaylen Brown on a few cuts that got his star teammate going a little bit. Smart has been the team’s primary point guard now for nearly the entirety of this turnaround. I asked him if he’s on a sort of “I told you so” kick.

“I'll just continue to let my game do the talking for itself,” he said. “My game is telling everybody I told you so, so I don't need to say anything. It's part of it. It took me eight years to get it. I waited my turn and now I'm just trying to do everything I can to take full advantage of that opportunity.”

Climbing in the standings: This was a great night for Boston in the standings with both Cleveland and Chicago losing. The Celtics are now alone as the fourth seed, a half game ahead of Chicago and one game behind Philadelphia for the third seed. They're 42-28 with 12 games left, so they are now officially guaranteed a winning season. They just need to go 8-4 the rest of the way to finish with 50 wins.

TURNING POINT

Golden State cut Boston’s lead to nine with 8:22 to go, but Payton Pritchard hit a pair of 3-pointers to push the lead back to 13. The Celtics outscored Golden State 27-14 over that final stretch. 

FIVE UP

Marcus Smart: I find it humorous that people commonly use the line “Marcus Smart thinks he’s Steph Curry” to denigrate him and then he shoots 4-7 from 3 at Golden State. 20 points, 8 assists, 4 rebounds, a steal, and ZERO turnovers. 

Robert Williams: He was a defensive menace. He came out of nowhere on most of his 4 blocked shots, seemingly surprising the Warriors with how quickly he could get to the ball. He and Smart were really the two primary reasons why Boston had a big early lead. 

Payton Pritchard: All 10 of his points came in the fourth quarter. 

Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown: I’m going to lump them together because they both had 26 points and, when you factor in their 7 combined assists, accounted for more than half the offense. However, neither shot well and both turned the ball over … especially Tatum in a brutal third quarter. 

ONE DOWN

Derrick White: Let’s do the compliment sandwich for White… 

White was a big part of the C’s defensive effort, especially in the first half. That's good to see because he is in a bigger funk than George Clinton, missing all 8 shots he took, including 5 3-pointers. He needs to find his way out of the shooting woes, because the rest of his game is still good. His 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and a steal were very helpful.

TOP PLAYS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Marcus Smart didn’t mean to hurt Steph Curry

I know why Steve Kerr overreacted, but he still overreacted when it came to Smart diving for a loose ball. 

“I thought it was a dangerous play,” Kerr said after the game. “I thought Marcus dove into Steph’s knee and that’s what I’m upset about. A lot of respect for Marcus, he’s a hell of a player. I coached him in the World Cup a few summers ago. We talked after the game, we’re good. But I thought it was a dangerous play."

I disagree. That was Smart diving for a loose ball, and Steph was bent over trying to pick it up. 

“I've been doing this since I first came in the league,” Smart said. “Not only that, we've seen guys like Draymond (Green) do that the play before with him and Grant (Williams), actually. Him and Grant got into it and Grant got hurt. Whiplash. Hurt his neck. Nobody said anything about that as a clean play, as a dirty play. Like I said, I could really care less about that because I know who I am. My teammates and players and my colleagues, they know I'm not a dirty player.”

As for Kerr, Smart says they hashed it out. 

“He’s doing what any coach, any player, any person would do and that's backing up his guys,” Smart said. “He felt at the time, you know, a way, and we talked it out. But at the end of that conversation, he told me ‘you one of the guys that I wish I had on my team-type.’ So me and Steve have that relationship with USA Basketball, so he knows and I'm never trying to hurt anybody.”

Now, the kick that earned him the flagrant-one is a different story. Smart swears that was just an accident. 

“I was just flying in to try to block it and he gave me a nice pump fake and I tried to stop myself in the air, which didn't work out too well for me,” he said. “I wasn't trying to kick anybody. I wasn't trying to block no shot with my foot. Literally, he made a great play. I was going to block him and I tried to stop and he gave me a pump fake and my body kept going and the other part of me didn't.”

That kind of thing happens. Ira Newble accidentally kicked Mike Dunleavy in the face. Pascal Siakam accidentally caught Daniel Theis with a super-kick. I personally believe Smart was trying to kick at the ball, but he says he wasn’t. I was fine with that being a flagrant 1.