Now that it’s generally accepted that Marcus Smart is a good point guard, the discourse surrounding him has sort of dissipated into the ether. But it hasn’t disappeared.
It’s been recycled and redirected at Derrick White, another point guard pushed a little out of position and being asked to do a lot of the little things that often go unnoticed but are actually crucial to the team’s success. Too often, an 0-6 night like he put up in Game 2 is harped on without the full context of what he can do for the team.
“If you base it solely on that, obviously he's struggled to shoot some,” Ime Udoka said. “But everything else he does obviously has a huge impact on us. So one of our main penetrate-and-kick guys, plays with great pace in the halfcourt and in transition, gets downhill and gets other guys shots.”
There are numbers that support White if you dig a little. Like, for example, he has one fewer secondary assist (also known as the hockey assist, or the pass that led to the assist) than team-leader Jayson Tatum despite playing 123 fewer playoff minutes. He is also passing the ball more than any other Celtic besides Smart per minute on the floor, meaning he’s a pretty consistent ball-mover.
“If people want to focus on shots only, just look at his impact while he was in the game,” Udoka said. “The plus/minus is there but also how he gets everybody else shots and so we're not focused on that and they are a team that helps off everybody so he’ll stay confident, knock those shots down, take the open ones just like everybody else and, when those fall, I guess that'll sort of somewhat be an added bonus but he impacts the game in so many other ways that it's not only relying on shot-making.”
Here’s one play where his impact is evident.
The little juke he gives Giannis Antetokounmpo really gets him out of the play. Antetokounmpo bit on the juke right, and that forces help, and a defensive mistake by the Bucks. Al Horford picked off the pass intended for Jaylen Brown and ended up getting the assist. He owes White a drink for that move. (Side note, Horford should have set a back screen on Brook Lopez to give Brown an extra wide-open shot).
But White’s smart plays can go a little deeper. Like this scram switch with Robert Williams.
White got cross-matched onto Lopez, but his good communication with Williams gets the big/big match up just in time for Williams to rebound the missed shot. There's no stat for what White did there, but that's a rebound that obviously goes to Lopez had he not communicated there.
And then there are little recognition plays, like this one during one of Boston’s highlight sequences.
First of all, he recognizes the defensive alignment and spots up for 3 to give Brown the outlet pass. Pay attention to the slight set up to shoot the ball -- he gets his steps, he looks to the basket, he sets up like he’s ready to fire and baits Jevon Carter into the hard contest. Then it’s a quick pass to Tatum to move the ball.
In the span of two seconds, he bailed out Brown, drew a defender out of the play, and moved the ball to the team’s best player to make a play.
“You saw a savvy veteran guard who has been around and knows how to handle himself in the playoffs,” Smart said. “Although he didn’t score the ball or shoot the ball very effectively the way we and he himself expect, but he made plays in other ways to affect the game and impact the game.”
He did that with another very simple play that had a few more layers to it than meets the eye.
White understands the game. When he caught the ball in the right corner with a chance to ice the game, he had plenty of time to shoot. He also knew that if he put the ball on the floor and drove it, he wouldn’t just kill time, he was going to draw defenders away from the corner and give Tatum time to relocate. Suddenly, instead of White trying to ice the game from the corner, it’s Tatum with an even better look.
He recognizes situations on the floor and reacts to them well. He knows where he's supposed to be and what he's supposed to do with the ball without having to hold onto the ball to survey the floor.
These are the types of little things White does to impact the game. However, basketball is still about making baskets, and White will have to do that more at some point here. Right now, the Bucks feel comfortable putting Antetokounmpo on White so he can roam off and be a help defender. White will have to make the Bucks pay for that strategy at some point in this series.
It’s never easy to join a team mid-stream, and it’s hard to remember that it still hasn’t even been three months since he was traded to Boston. There's a good chance his shooting will normalize after his world settles down. For now, he just has to keep focusing on what he does best and that his shot will fall a little more consistently soon.
“His shot is going to fall, he’s going to continue to be himself, and that’s just making everybody around him better,” Smart said. “We have confidence in him, and he has confidence in himself. He’s working every day, and he knows — he’s been here before — just to keep going. They are going to fall. Take the open ones. Shoot it with confidence.”