Can the Celtics overcome the loss of their most important role-player?

Marcus Smart is an unquestioned leader of the Celtics with a now-famous knack for making wacky, last second plays to win games. Following news that Smart will miss at least the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Celtics are faced with a peculiar question: will this team finally be able to rally around its stars and overcome the loss of its most important role-player?

This has been a disappointing season for the marquee players on the Celtics. Gordon Hayward has struggled to live up to his max contract while still recovering from the gruesome ankle injury he suffered in last year’s season opener. Jaylen Brown has turned his level of play up as of late, but only after looking lost on the bench for half the season. Jayson Tatum has lacked aggression at times this year, and his projected path to perennial MVP candidate doesn’t seem quite as clear as it was 10 months ago when he was dunking on LeBron in the playoffs. Al Horford has continuously dealt with nagging knee injuries. The ongoing confrontation between Kyrie Irving, the team, and the media just puts the cherry on top on a season that seemingly hits a new rock-bottom every few weeks.

Marcus Smart, however, had a great season. He set career new career highs in several efficiency metrics like field goal percentage, 3-point percentage, effective field goal percentage, started more games than any season in his career, set a career high in steals, and is a presumptive addition to one of the NBA All-Defense teams. Most impressively, he became a league-average 3-point shooter this season. That doesn’t sound like much, but for a player who was at one point considered the worst shooter in the NBA, becoming a legitimate 3-point shooting threat is a huge leap.

Smart’s value to the team is not defined by his statistical impact, improved as it is. His value comes from being the one player on the team who fully embodies the traits that the Celtics have borrowed from the city of Boston on its way to 17 Larry O’Brien trophies: toughness, intelligence, and hustle.

Last year, those three attributes defined the entire team. After Gordon Hayward’s freak injury to begin the year, the Celtics responded in the best possible way they could have. After losing the next game on the road trip, they broke off a 16 game winning streak. More than anything they did in this stretch, they defended. They hustled intelligently and used their mental toughness to wear opponents to the ground. Horford was locking everyone down. Brown made a huge leap offensively in his second year, and turned his defensive potential into defensive production. Most impressive of all was the rookie, Tatum. Pundits marveled at his consistency, poise, talent, and intelligence. He was ready to play 30 minutes a night for a winning team in the first week of his career. “He looks like a 5 year vet out there!” remarked at least 20 announcers.

Sure, they had Kyrie Irving. But even when Kyrie Irving found his season finishing before the playoffs due to complications from an old knee surgery, the team didn’t buckle. Instead, the rest of the team played entirely up to its potential in the playoffs. The ball moved well side to side, the team defended with the highest intensity, and Jayson “He’s only 20!” Tatum and Jaylen Brown showed the world they were stars. Brad Stevens cemented his position as one of the league’s great minds. Terry Rozier, the backup-backup point guard, made the best of his opportunity and introduced himself to the world (and Eric Bledsoe). The Celtics started the season as a young, upcoming team whose star suffered a gruesome injury and yet somehow ended the season as the team of the future, mere minutes from a Finals appearance and featuring the rookie who boomed LeBron James in crunch time in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, a coach in position to become the next Popovich, the best GM in the league, etc… Oh yeah, and next year, we’re gonna have Hayward and Kyrie, too! The East is ours! Look out, Warriors!

This year, the gap between pre-season expectations and the eventual results is almost comical. Well-known Celtics supporter Bill Simmons famously predicted the team would finish with 67 wins and “a lot of high fives”. Neither predictions have happened. Following Tuesday’s victory over the hapless Wizards, the Celtics finished with a record of 49-33, good for 4th in the Eastern Conference. This is the fewest wins the Celtics have won since 2015-16, when they won 48 games with significantly less talent. That was the year Isaiah Thomas became an All-Star, but that was also before any of Al Horford, Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum joined the team. Fans were waiting on the Nets picks, while quietly hoping that Jared Sullinger would drop some weight and that RJ Hunter and James Young would pan out. Often, when the Celtics needed a bucket, they threw the ball to Evan Turner.

The point is this team is better than it has shown to be on the court this season. A cloud has followed the team the majority of the year, impacting the night-to-night effort that is given. Its root is still uncertain. There are many theories, chief among them the notion that the team took a visit to the the Kyrie Irving School of Leadership and found that it needed a new curriculum. Or that the egos of the young stars were overinflated from their playoff run, and a sense of entitlement is to blame for the lack of effort and focus the Celtics have shown all year. Or that maybe the Celtics played over their abilities last year, and are simply an overrated collection of talent. Perhaps it’s a combination of the three, with Gordon Hayward’s inconsistent play only exacerbating the disappointment.

There’s one thing we all know for certain; something needs to change. The idea that the Celtics are better off without Kyrie is laughable, but his greatness on offense sometimes does create a bit of a problem. Occasionally, his teammates fall into the habit of sitting back and watching him go to work on a poor defender, becoming spectators. Unfortunately, Marcus Smart has had similar effects on the rest of the team when it comes to 50-50 balls and hustle plays this season. Too often, the Celtics have been spectators to Marcus Smart playing with the intensity and grit required to win in the playoffs while they listlessly take mid-range shots, ill-advised 3-pointers, and don’t get back in transition. It’s easy to get complacent when you have a teammate like Smart who would dive on the ground after a loose ball 50 times a game if he had to, while also distributing the ball to his teammates and making big defensive plays. With Smart out, the Celtics will have to prove that they can step up and collectively fill the void when it comes to playing hard.

Life without Smart in the playoffs obviously calls for a lineup change. Smart has been a mainstay in the starting lineup for months, but the opening originally featured Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward, who have both since found their way to the bench. With the recent hard downswing of what had been a career year for starter Marcus Morris, expect to see more of the Irving-Brown-Hayward-Tatum-Horford lineup on the floor. This lineup, affectionately nicknamed “Erotic City” by the weirder parts of the Celtics internet community, is probably the most talent the Celtics can bring to the court at once, but hasn’t been used as often as you might expect. This lineup has played only 145 minutes together, compared to 505 minutes played with the Irving-Smart-Tatum-Morris-Horford lineup. If the Celtics want to go on a sustained playoff run, the Erotic City lineup will need to hit its ceiling. And they can’t do that without invoking the spirit of Marcus Smart.











