Marcus Smart has made a career of wild defensive stops in key moments. Sometimes it’s a steal, sometimes it’s a blocked shot, and other times it’s finding a way to turn the other team against themselves by setting them up to commit critical fouls.
Smart’s forte has always been a mixture of mind games, smart play, and manipulation. Never has that been on display quite like when he took two consecutive charges from James Harden to help the Celtics complete a 26-point comeback against the Houston Rockets.
“That was one that we never forget. We always talk about that one,” Al Horford told BostonSportsJournal.com.
That game was, fittingly after the Rockets just left Boston last night, five years ago today. December 28, 2017. It was a Thursday night TNT game. The Rockets had Harden and Chris Paul and were on their way to a 65-win season. They’d won 14 straight games between mid-November and mid-December, but lost Paul to a groin injury and came in on a three-game losing streak.
The Celtics were learning to play without Gordon Hayward, who broke his ankle in the first game of the season. They managed a 16-game winning streak after two losses to start the season and they came into the game leading the East at 28-10. The Rockets were 25-8, so this was going to be a great national TV matchup.
“Man, I was 19. I was happy to be out there. There was a lot going on,” Jayson Tatum said of the night. “Playing against James Harden for the first time. CP was on the bench, I remember he wasn’t playing. Eric Gordon was out there. I was just playing against some of these guys for the first time, so that was still when I was in a stretch of just, like, in awe and catching myself like, ‘Damn, I’m really in the NBA.’ So I was just taking it all in.”
Things got weird right away when referee Mark Lindsay had to miss the game with back issues.
“We ended up having only two officials officiate that game,” Smart told BSJ. “Things got out of hand for us. We were like ‘what the heck is going on?’ It was like open gym at first and we got down bad.”
Boston was outscored 32-12 in the first quarter alone. The Celtics started Smart, Horford, Tatum, Kyrie Irving, and Aron Baynes. Abdel Nader, Terry Rozier, Marcus Morris, Daniel Theis, and Shane Larkin came off the bench. They turned the ball over eight times in the first quarter alone. The Rockets added four points to the lead in the second quarter to go into the half up 62-38.
“It was like one of those games that as a team, we were just dragging,” Horford said, really emphasizing the word ‘dragging.’ “They were just coming in here and just having their will on us. And we were kind of down and out. That's was the feeling in the locker room at halftime. So I remember we said like, hey, like we got to pick up our energy let's come out, let's just fight. Let's see what happens.”
Brad Stevens, who was in his fifth season as the Celtics coach at that point, said “the undervalued part of that is the second night of a back-to-back. It’s the idea that you were on the road the night before, they come out and just kind of drop a haymaker on you, and then you have to respond. It's so easy not to respond in that moment.”
The Celtics responded with a 31-16 third quarter. Irving scored 12 in the quarter but Smart’s defense set the tone. He had three blocked shots in the third as the Celtics cut the lead to single digits.
“That game really changed when we started picking up full and really pressuring because just letting Harden walk into his offense there in the first quarter, we just didn't have a chance,” Stevens told BSJ. “What was pretty impressive about Smart is he played a lot. It was the second night of a back-to-back, he ratcheted up that pressure and stayed with it until the final horn.”
They slowly whittled the lead down further over the course of the fourth. Smart’s layup with 13.5 seconds is where the good part of the story really starts. Houston took a timeout, their last, to get the ball into the halfcourt. The Celtics start playing the foul game to extend things and hope for the best. After two Harden free throws, Boston calls its final timeout and gets Tatum a dunk to cut it to one.
And then…
“I'm going to deny, we're getting ready to probably trap before we foul,” Smart recalled. “James is pushing me before to play, before the ball is inbounded. So in my mind, I'm like, refs are telling him to stop it, I'm standing in my spot. I have every right to the position, I was there before him, so I’m like if he pushes me again, I'm gonna go down. You just can't put two hands in somebody's chest. And literally he did it. I went down, got the call. We get it. We score.”
Horford, somehow, muscled in a righty hook. When the ball went through, it landed in Harden’s hands with Smart draped all over him. Harden pushed Smart with the ball and then swung his arm further to clear some space, drawing the attention of official Tony Brothers.
“He's so frustrated at that time, he's steady pushing me right in front of the official,” Smart recalled. “Once the official came over and told him to knock it off, I knew all I have to do is go down because he's already brought attention to the play. They already warned him. As they can see, he’s the aggressor.”
According to Horford, “the second time, we probably got away with a little flop there, but he sold it just as good. And it was a great feeling. The building was as energized as I've been here in the Garden.”
Stevens agreed about the crowd.
“That was one of those games where TD Garden stayed with us,” he told me. “We were dead in the water and then we made a little bit of a run and we had really tough, hard-playing guys. And then, the Garden can kind of sense you've got a chance, and then there's a little bit more of a chance, and then all of a sudden you're knocking on the door winning the game, and the place is just electric. We have all lived that so many times. Those are the goosebump games when you're coaching or playing for the Celtics.”
There are plenty of fans who still get goosebumps when they see the play. It’s one of the signature stretches of Smart’s career, and one he still gets asked about a lot. For his teammates, it’s one of the plays that highlights his value to the team.
“We expect when we need a big play or we need something that he kind of does things like that,” Horford said. For Tatum, a rookie at the time, this was an introduction to the Marcus Smart experience.
“That was the first time I really understood how valuable Smart was to our team,” Tatum said. “There’s nobody else in this league who can make those kind of plays in those moments like he can. Since then, he’s made thousands of those different plays since I’ve been on the team, but that was kind of like the first time I really witnessed that first-hand of like, he does some incredible things that may not be the flashiest, but very valuable to a team that’s trying to win a championship.”
Said Stevens, “from the moment Danny (Ainge) said this is the guy that I really want to draft, and you watched him play, it was very obvious that’s what he does. He does things that other people sometimes can't do, sometimes are unwilling to do. He just has a special ability.”
It’s been five years since that sequence of events. It’s funny that the Rockets just left town with Tatum, Smart, and Horford (albeit with a detour in the middle) being part of the crew that sent them packing.
“Here we are again, still to this day five years later,” Smart told me with a smile. “JT still dunking, Al still getting buckets, and I'm still getting stops.”