Marcus Smart Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Boston was bad but the Celtics are far from finished
Boston Celtics fans, I saw the looks on some of your faces as you filed out of TD Garden early on Tuesday night. With the series tied at 2-2, there was no way you all expected the Philadelphia 76ers to pulverize your team in the second half on the way to a 115-103 victory....
Celtics' Joe Mazzulla’s reluctance to call a timeout is a blunder that’s become too common
The use of timeouts in one-possession games is a contentious philosophical debate in NBA circles. Each end-of-game episode presents coaches with an ambiguous multiple-choice equation. Timeouts have an expiration date, but that hasn’t stopped coaches from attempting to carry them into the next game o...
The NBA is incentivizing flopping
NBA players have cause to be upset with the officiating in the playoffs. Just last week a ball clearly bounced off of a rim and the Miami Heat still were called for a crucial shot clock violation. I am never inclined to defend Scott Foster, but maybe his brain was fried from a flop fest that night b...
These 9 NBA veterans are crucial to their team's playoff success
Older generations have always had critiques of where the game is going. Each generation, old heads critique how soft and easy the game has become. You can track this through podcasts, interviews, and any episode of the NBA on TNT with Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal. While revisionist history a...
Never trust an NBA Eastern Conference team
It’s getting pretty freaking unfunny how quickly the playoffs can flip narratives. The NBA’s Eastern Conference is supposed to be the superior of the two, with the three best records belonging to Milwaukee, Boston, and Philadelphia, and four of the top six marks overall. The first round was going to...
Overreacting to Game 1 of each NBA Playoff series
One game into each NBA postseason series feels like a good time to make some premature, bold declarations. The postseason tipped off with a fury of finishes that ranged from exciting to anesthesia. But Game 1 is a starter kit that we’ll try to extrapolate on. It would be wise to tread carefully in t...
Mikal Bridges is the calm after the storm of Brooklyn’s tumultuous Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant era
Today is the one-month anniversary of the NBA trade deadline that put the league in a blender. While the Phoenix Suns seem content with their half of the trade that netted them Kevin Durant, the Brooklyn Nets have quietly been winners in their own way. In addition to the first-round picks Phoenix su...
You can’t be annoying AND miss both free throws
The Boston Celtics have had a pretty shitty go of it the past week or so. They’ve lost four of five — two to the New York Knicks (one in double OT), one to the Brooklyn Nets (where they got booed off their home floor), and an OT loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Celtics are now two games behind t...
Philadelphia is the NBA’s bridesmaid until further notice
Joel Embiid is the Second Coming. That is, he’s perpetually in second place, whether it’s to Nikola Jokić in MVP battles, playoff battles, or on the All-NBA team. Count the Boston Celtics as another circumstance where Embiid finishes second. On Saturday night, Embiid continued his second-place tradi...
Ime Udoka, who? Joe Mazzulla is coaching in the NBA All-Star Game
When Joe Mazzulla was announced as the Boston Celtics interim head coach in September, many had no idea who the 34-year-old was. But, I did. Back in 2008, his 13 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists performance in 31 minutes off the bench sent my Duke Blue Devils home in the second round of the NC...
NBA Schedule: The best games to watch for All-Star Week
Did you take a puff of your inhaler? A shot of dark liquor?...
The best games on the NBA schedule the week of Feb. 6 — the NFL season is over, get used to it
Sunday is the season finale for NFL 2022. All that is left until post-Labor Day is free-agent signings, trades, the NFL Draft, and position battles in practice. Sure some of you are looking forward to the speculation, but that can’t possibly compare to seven hours of actual game action. For those of...
Who are the top 5 defenders in the NBA?
In this current era of NBA basketball, it’s all about who can shoot and dominate on the offensive end of the court. The days of lockdown defenders have disappeared and been replaced by terms like, “it’s a make or miss league.” With all the scoring we’ve seen this season, that’s all it is. Boston rec...
Hey James Harden, you've got airmail
James Harden’s most iconic sequences are so identical they blur together. Jab step, dribble, dribble again, dribble behind the back, dribble between the legs, dribble one more time… I check my phone… he stutter-steps — oh wait — one more dribble, crossover dribble, crossover dribble, step-back. The ...
It isn’t Celtics or Suns players’ job to answer for Ime Udoka and Robert Sarver’s actions
The question askers were there. The question answerers were not....
How bloated are the preseason win totals for the NBA teams fans love to hate?
When oddsmakers release NBA win-total futures, most casual fans scan right to their teams’ over/under and say, “My team’s better than that.” After a prolonged and misguided rant about sharps who do this for a living doing their job, the next move is to find the franchises they hate and bitch about t...
The two trains of thought are colliding on the Kevin Durant-Jaylen Brown trade
The Boston Celtics have reached their offseason garden of forking paths. After falling short in the NBA Finals, they now seem willing to break up their young tandem, and potentially a fulcrum of their asphyxiating defense. ...
Which state can field the best starting 5?
Now that the Warriors have returned to glory post-Durant, NBA fans just survived one of the most unbearable periods of the NBA. One filled with superteams and razor-thin parity between the three to four coastal teams with stacked talent (Warriors, Lakers, Nets), and the rest of the small-market team...
LeBron James told the truth about Brittney Griner and Boston… people got mad — in other news, water is wet
The first step is always the hardest because people hate admitting their faults, especially in a place like America where denial is a part of this country’s DNA....