Karalis: Celtics might just be a defense-first team again, now that Marcus Smart is back to his normal self

Jaylen Brown let the Atlanta Hawks know right away what kind of night they’d be facing. 

Guarding Dejounte Murray in the corner and seeing Clint Capela coming to set a pin-down screen, Brown stuck to Murray’s body and jumped the passing lane to steal the first pass of the game, turning into a pretty layup on the other end. 

“I went crazy in my head. I was screaming like, ‘There we go,’” Marcus Smart said. “He's a great two-way player and we're gonna need that out of him. So to see that and how he was locked in and ready to go was exciting for me.”

A lot of things are exciting for Smart now that the Celtics are in the playoffs, including the opportunity to atone for a regular season that he has admitted was not up to his standards. He put his defense where his mouth was in Game 1 against the Hawks, playing one of his best defensive games in a Celtics uniform. 

“He was physical. His pick-up points were great,” Joe Mazzulla said after the Game 1 win. “He has the presence to be the quarterback on the defensive end where it puts us, we’re able to change coverages, change matchups, and when he’s doing that, our defense is special, and it starts with him. I think he brought it both physically and mentally on the defensive end tonight. I thought that was a huge key for us.”

The entire Celtics' defense was locked in, especially in the first half. They had one tough quarter, the third, where they allowed the Hawks to shoot 13-24 and put up 31 points. Atlanta was otherwise 25-64 (39%) for 68 points. The Celtics finished the night with six steals and seven blocked shots, along with 46 defensive rebounds. It was a total team effort, but Smart was leading the charge.

Take this play, for example, from the second quarter: 

 Let me run down everything he did:

• He switched onto Onyeka Okongwu, an athletic big who was cross-matched on Malcolm Brogdon.
• Smart turned around expecting to switch with Sam Hauser but then recognized Hauser had been picked off.
• You can see the point he realizes he has to be the guy to defend Okongwu, so he turns on the jets to catch up,
• As he was running, he recognized this is a lob for Okongwu, so he got into position like a cornerback reading a wide receiver’s break.
• Then he jumped and deflected the lob, starting the fast break. 

And he did it all in four seconds. On top of that, he hustled back down the floor to save Brogdon and give him someone to pass the ball to as he was falling out of bounds. 

“Instincts are part of it and honestly just not giving up on the play,” Smart said. “Defense doesn't take a lot of skills, but it takes a lot of hard work and you just gotta continue to do it.”

Smart did continue to do it, making some of his most impactful plays when the Hawks were cutting into Boston’s once 30-point lead. Whenever the Celtics needed to make a defensive play, it seemed Smart was there. 

“I guess sometimes you take it for granted,” Jayson Tatum said. “But one of the best, if not the best defender that we have in this league. Just extremely special on that side of the ball and he shows it night in and night out.”

The Celtics' offense took a break in the second half of Game 1, slowing to a halt for way too long in a playoff game. But to Boston’s credit, they didn’t let their misses and offensive lapses translate to the defensive end. They took the one big run the Hawks had to offer and they were able to shut it down before it became an actual problem. 

Now the question is whether Atlanta's second half is something that can give them confidence heading into Game 2. Smart knows the Celtics can control what that answer is. 

"As tough as we make it. If we come in and we allow them to just get open freely, get on the glass and get second, third chance opportunities and start feeling themselves … it's going to be really hard,” Smart said. “If we come out and do what we're supposed to do tonight - keep them off the glass, keep them to one shot. Other than that little spurt they had when they started to hit some shots because we weren't in the right coverages, we were turning around. They were coming fast when we wasn't ready - cleaning that up, it’ll help us a lot."

The Celtics have been an offense-first team trying to convince us they hung their hats on defense all year long. Now that the playoffs are here, and now that Smart is getting back to some of the stuff that won him Defensive Player of the Year, they might actually be the defensive monster we remember them to be.