BOSTON — A lot has happened in the nine days since Marcus Smart made some pointed comments about the lack of passing from Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Boston reportedly had a team meeting which wasn’t particularly productive among the players involved. Brown, Tatum and Brad Stevens also acknowledged they weren’t thrilled with Smart’s critiques becoming public in the wake of a disappointing home loss against the Bulls.
Despite all this, the Celtics season has slowly turned around since Smart took his teammates to task. Boston has gone 3-1 since that stretch while putting together by far the best defensive rating in the NBA over the past week. The one loss came in a winnable game in Dallas that Smart blew with questionable decision-making on both ends of the floor in the final 30 seconds.
Smart finally had a chance to follow up on his comments and what’s happened in the aftermath on Wednesday night in his first media availability in over a week after the Celtics’ 104-88 win over the Toronto Raptors. After being asked directly about his comments and the fallout from them, Smart took a new tactic: A sidestep.
“We had a great game,” Smart replied. “It’s a great game. We won, first home win. So, like I said, it was much needed. Got another one on Friday to take care of.”
Smart has always been a Celtic who usually wears his heart on his sleeve in postgame interviews so this was a bit of a shift in tactics for the veteran guard. However, given the way that Tatum and Brown spoke about Smart’s remarks, stepping away from addressing them altogether was probably the safest route he could take on that front, short of a mea culpa.
The relationship behind closed doors between the longest-tenured teammates remains unclear in the wake of those comments but Smart certainly didn’t want to reopen any old wounds by addressing them further on Wednesday. Instead, he spoke solely from a team standpoint when discussing the team’s recent turnaround, particularly on the defensive end.
“We’ve been playing very well,” Smart said. “We have a lot of weapons on that end to be able to do it. So, it was a lot of new guys, was getting used to everybody. New defense, it didn’t start off well for us but we’re picking things up and guys are coming along -- the chemistry on that end is coming along. So we’re doing our jobs.”
Whether or not Smart’s comments ultimately serve as a turning point in the season remains to be seen, whether it’s where the Celtics season eventually got back on track or a precursor to an eventual Smart deal later in the season. For now, more wins has made it far easier to keep everyone looking positive and forward.
“We continue to go out there and play 48 minutes, too, and that that was the difference,” Smart said of the win. “They came in last time and they ran us off the floor and we made sure that that didn’t happen again tonight.”
Josh Richardson thriving in bigger role
The veteran wing had an underwhelming start to his Boston career amid a couple of missed game due to back and foot issues. However, with Jaylen Brown sidelined due to a hamstring injury, Richardson has asserted himself in a bigger role off Boston’s bench.
The 6-foot-5 guard scored in double figures (15 points) for the second straight game against the Raptors, while providing a strong defensive presence against Toronto’s speedy backcourt.
“He’s solidified our bench,” Udoka said. “We talk about him and Dennis when we have our whole team, having some veterans there that we can rely on every night, Jaylen has been out so he has had more opportunities with that but in general, that’s what we knew we had coming in. Veteran presence off the bench. We have Romeo and Aaron, Grant, Payton, some younger guys, but we know what we have in J-Rich and Dennis, so when we do get the whole group back, I think this will just help us overall. The carryover will be good. But we need him to be consistent bringing that energy, effort offensively defensively every night.”
Richardson has felt the added minutes has helped him get into a rhythm as well.
“I’ve been able to have the ball in my hands a little bit more, being able to create,” he said. “I think my biggest thing is feeling healthy. I think that slowed me down a little bit early and as long as my body keeps feeling good and I take care of myself, then I think I’ll keep moving up.”
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November 11, 2021 at 06:00PM
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Marcus Smart passes on addressing critical comments fallout for Celtics, Josh Richardson getting comfortable - MassLive.com
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