Shocking standings, Marcus Smart for DPOY, Deuce the instigator, and other Boston Celtics notes

With eight games left in the regular season, the Boston Celtics, amazingly, find themselves just a game and a half out of first place in the Eastern Conference. 

“We’ve obviously taken a huge jump,” Ime Udoka said this week. “It's a great run that we’ve been on. Eight to go and we still want to get better.”

Jaylen Brown is normally straight-faced when asked questions about things like this, but even he couldn't help but give into the incredulity of the moment after blowing out the Utah Jazz. 

“That’s crazy, right?” he said with a laugh. “I knew the energy was about to shift, so I’m happy that we’re here now. It’s crazy to know we’re a game and a half—as many games as we blew in the first half of the season. It would’ve been nice to have won some of those games because maybe we would be in first right now, but everything happens for a reason. So we take it one game at a time. We see where we’re at come playoff time.”

In a weird way, we probably should have seen some of this coming considering how often Boston built and lost big leads. With so much focus on the collapses, people generally overlooked what the team did to get there in the first place. Udoka, however, did not. 

“You saw glimpses of our defense, you saw offensive execution at times, and it was a matter of closing out,” Udoka said. “The one thing we always had optimism about was that we were building big leads or beating good teams. We had some bad losses as well, but getting those leads on the main teams – although we lost a few – without a full roster, we still were getting those leads. It was a matter of closing out.”

They're doing that now, and doing it in a big way. Boston’s fourth quarter net rating before the All-Star break was -2.1, which put them in the bottom third of the league. If you move the stat sliders back to January 6 and a blown lead against New York, it was -8.7 to that point of the season, second-worst in the league. After the All-Star break, it’s +10.6, eighth-best in the league.. 

Much of the losing came with guys out of the lineup. The prospect of a full squad is what buoyed Udoka’s confidence. 

“We didn’t ever really get blown out,” he said. “For the most part, we were either losing leads or very competitive against the best teams. And so, we felt good about that going forward, and a lot of times it was without a full roster and so, that’s where the optimism came in …, we knew the results could come. And so, you’re starting to see that. It’s all contagious. Winning is fun and contagious, and our guys just want to keep that going and improve going into the playoffs.”

Boston’s ascent to striking distance of the top seed is one of the most talked-about topics in the NBA right now. Because Boston front-loaded their losses, the perception of the team is still, somewhat, one that was mediocre and is now riding a high. The players can be just as taken aback by the standings as you are, but the key to them continuing to climb is to ignore them. 

“We don’t talk about it in the locker room,” Brown said. “It’s about us, so we just prepare to win every game and we’ll see what happens.”

THE MARCUS SMART FOR DPOY CAMPAIGN

When a team grabs, or gets close to, the top seed, part of the conversation inevitably goes to award chatter. Top seeds are fertile ground for award frontrunners, but because Boston’s climb is so different, any Celtics who might be under consideration are late adds to the debate. 

I’ve made my case for Ime Udoka as Coach of the Year and today even batted around the idea of Jayson Tatum in the MVP race, but Boston’s best chance at grabbing one of these year-end awards might be Marcus Smart in the Defensive Player of the Year race. If he were to win it, he’d be the first guard to do so since Gary Payton in 1996, a reference he made on Twitter as he campaigns for the award. 

“I think anyone on that court making an impact, no matter the position, should be able to win defensive player of the year,” Robert Williams, who has a stake in this discussion, said this week. “Marcus Smart. That's how I feel about that.”

Williams says Smart would easily get his vote, adding “look at what he's doing, look at what he's been doing since I've been in the league. Played with him my whole career in the league. Like I said, my energy, I base it off of his defensive presence. When I see him attack the other team, I wanna follow that. I wanna follow that routine, so he got my vote 100 percent.”

According to a new ESPN evaluation of the All-Defense candidates, when Smart is involved in a switch, he has the fewest points per possession allowed among NBA guards. Also, in their recent win over Memphis, Smart held Ja Morant to just three shot attempts on 27 possessions when guarding him.  

“He can kind of read the sets they’re gonna run, but he’s a very timely double teamer,” Udoka said. “With all the switching we do, that’s one of the benefits of Marcus and our big wings. He guards some of these guys inside. … He has the strength to kind of get under them and hold them up until help arrives or he takes a poor shot. So very beneficial as far as what we do defensively. He does his homework and calls out sets and makes sure everyone is in their places.”

There is some growing momentum for Smart to win the award. Some in the media are buying in, and the longer the Celtics climb the standings behind their top-rated defense, the better chance he has. There might be some cannibalization of votes because of Robert Williams’ gaudy defensive numbers, but with Rob throwing his weight behind Smart, there is at least a unified front in Boston. 

I would expect a bigger team campaign to begin in the near future. 

GOOD CHEMISTRY 

Garbage time is a great chance for starters to hang out on the bench, unlace their shoes, and kick back while the guys at the end of the bench get some well-deserved NBA minutes. 

But these Celtics aren’t all content to just lay back and decompress. They are up and cheering for their teammates as if the game is tied. 

“The thing that becomes contagious is their on-the-court play, and that carries over to the bench,” Udoka said. “If you see Payton doing well, Marcus is in there encouraging him, cheering him on. It’s trickled down - unselfishness on the floor has carried over to the bench. Obviously winning breeds a lot of that. Guys are really happy for each other. A big sign of growth is that everybody is on the same page. It’s become contagious and it’s trickling down. We love the energy overall, guys happy for each other and each other’s success.”

KISS OF DEATH

Tatum has taken to a new 3-point celebration, blowing kisses to the crowd after particularly fun ones. He says he did it once, and his son Deuce started imitating it, so he continued doing it. 

“Well Jayson stole the kiss from me,” Jaylen Brown joked in a particularly upbeat post-Jazz media session. “He watching me work out and stuff like that, and then pregame, when I’m getting ready for the game, he watches my workout and he kinda sees what I’ve got going on and he’s like, OK, I’m gonna come out and see if I can get away with something. He definitely got the kiss from me. Let’s roll the tape back.”

Brown has a point. He’s been known to blow a post-3 kiss to a bench or two. He’s not sweating it, though. 

“Now I’ve got to mix it up,” he joked. “I don’t know what to do. … I gotta switch it up.”

SPEAKING OF DEUCE…

The junior Tatum taking swipes at Marcus Smart inbounding the ball was a fun moment during the Jazz game.

“Me and Deuce got a love-hate relationship, Smart said. “I was actually expecting it. Deuce is always trying to attack me any time I come near him and that's just who he is. We all love Deuce and he's our guy, so we'll take it. … That’s just how me and Deuce roll, that’s me and him. Nobody else, that’s just me and Deuce’s relationship.”

PAYTON PRITCHARD <3 DWYANE WADE

Former Miami Heat star, and Celtics nemesis, Dwyane Wade bought a minority stake in the Utah Jazz this season. Wade was spotted courtside at the game, but unlike Deuce, he didn’t get too involved with the guys on the floor … a disappointing development for Payton Pritchard.

“That was my favorite player growing up. I wore number three growing up, I looked up to him since I was a real little kid,” he said. “It was a crazy moment seeing him there and watching the game. I idolized him growing up.”

If it seems odd for a kid from the Pacific Northwest who has no real similarities to Wade on the court to fall for Flash, that's because it is. 

“It's actually a funny story,” he said. “When I was really little … I was playing video games with my dad and I had no idea about anything in the league at the time and I made him use the Miami Heat and he was playing with D-Wade and he killed me in a video game and I just kind of started watching him after that and was just started like, that's when he went on his championship run and then I just became in love with him and wanted to be him. Obviously, I don't play like him, but still, just was enamored by him.”

You’d think a guy enamored with Wade would take the chance to say hello after the game, but he missed his chance. That means he still hasn’t met his basketball idol. 

“I haven't. I haven't at all,” he said. “That would be sweet.”