Museum of Modern Smart — The Subtle Brillance of Marcus Smart

Wayne Spooney
8 min readFeb 5, 2022

Marcus Smart is averaging a sizzling 11.4–3.9–5.5 on a “YMCA chucker you hate to play with” slash line of 40.3/31.2/77.8 with a 51.6 TS%. That puts him right around the 140th most efficient guard in the NBA (at least 15 GPs and 10MPG). That’s… not good. It’s not quite “sink the offense” bad, although it’s getting fairly close. I should also mention that Smart is a +223 for the season in 1439 minutes, second only to Jayson “Plus Minus God” Tatum on the Celtics. His On/Off numbers are fucking absurd. Here’s a chart because I’m not familiar with presenting information in any other way:

Editor’s note: all stats are a game or two old. It took me a long time to write this ok?!

I’ll put this simply, the Celtics are better at everything, in every way, when Marcus Smart is on the floor. Fucking how? In the 5 games he played in October for instance, he shot 25.5/23.5, yet he led the team in +/- for the month at +17.

He’s a defensive monster that guards 1–5 somewhere between admirably and absolute lockdown. When Smart’s on the floor, the Celtics defend at a level that would rank second in the NBA (team is 4th overall, pretty, pretty, pretty good).

Offense is where shit gets weird. When Smart’s off the court, the Celtics’ offense is worse than the Houston Rockets at 104.7. Only better than the true sad sacks of the league: the Magic, Pistons, and the Thunder. With him on the court? We’d be tied for 9th with the Bucks at 111.4. From early 2000’s big shorts era offense to a real life, modern NBA offense simply by having a guy with a 51.6 TS% on the court. Makes zero fucking sense.

So I pose this question again: Fucking how? I’ll summarize. Marcus Smart is a “Little Things” All-Star (that’s also what my wife calls me). Smart is so good at the things that don’t show up in the traditional box score that it overshadows his real, and at times frustrating, limitations on the offensive end. Let’s take up the obvious first, his absurd defense, then we can focus on Smart’s offense in Part 2.

“‘First Team All Defense — Tony Allen’ -Marcus Smart”

Nate Duncan recently said on Hollinger and Duncan that Smart’s still “pretty good” on defense, but not elite anymore. Nate, I’m officially putting you on notice. Please correct the record or I will be forced to write you a tersely worded DM like my grandfather would have done.

I want the world to know, if I hear you repeating this dumb ass narrative from last season that Smart has slipped on defense, I’m coming for you. I will find you and make a joke about you that doesn’t quite land, but you kinda know what I was getting at. Be forewarned.

Smart has been fucking phenomenal on defense this year. Physically he looks like he’s back in his prime. Effortlessly switching from guarding point guards to bullying centers, many times in the same possession. He’s regularly blowing up plays off ball so badly they result in a late clock isolation. Smart is one of those rare defenders that teams actively bend their offense to avoid. Even more rare is that he has that effect as a point guard.

The Stats Say — He Good

The defensive rating speaks for itself, but if you take a deeper look, the stats emphasize his impact even more thoroughly. Smart is a ball magnet (nice), he’s 8th in the league in deflections per game at 3.1, and tied for 3rd in the league in loose balls recovered per game at 1.2. When he’s on the court opponent EFG% drops from 51.1% to a ridiculous 49.5%. Opponents turn it over more, score less efficiently, and rebound fewer of their misses when Smart is playing. Opponents shoot 42.7/33.1/79.1 when he’s at the head of the Celtics’ defense, with him riding the bench — 44.3/35.9/75.6. Obviously Smart can’t defend free throws, but if he could I’d imagine he’d be one of the best in the league at it.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend Smart’s the sole reason for some of these stats (maybe the soul reason, ya know, like heart and soul? I’m sorry). He absolutely benefits from playing alongside the switchy athleticism of Brown and Tatum and a wise defensive sage in Al Horford. Not to mention the guy protecting the rim knows exactly where the next shot is going because he literally is time’s lord. All of that really helps, but god damn, Smart is a massive piece of this success, so let’s take a look at why.

The Most Boring Collection of Defensive Plays You’ve Ever Seen, Or Proof Marcus Smart is a Defensive Genius

One thing I want to mention before we start looking at plays (offense and defense) is that none of these are particularly spectacular plays. In fact, that’s exactly why I’m using them. Smart consistently is in the right position. He constantly makes the right rotation, switch, or read. It’s not the spectacular that leaves you with ridiculous +/- stats, it’s doing the right thing, over and over and over again every possession throughout the course of a season. That’s what these plays are examples of (although I threw in a lob to Rob in the offense section, I couldn’t help myself). And if you disagree, you are probably right, I’ve watched so many basic plays to find good examples of Smart doing something well, but not too well, that I may have lost my mind. Regardless, here we go.

This first play is from our most recent Miami game. The result is an out of bounds on Boston. Not the important part. Smart starts out on Herro in the weakside corner. The play is to have Herro cut baseline and get a screen from Bam. Ideally, this should open up Herro for a corner jumper or a Bam post up. On Herro’s way through the lane, Smart calls for a damn switch before Bam even starts to set the pick! That little piece of Bball IQ (and Tatum’s nice job containing the ball handler) leaves Miami with option 2, a Bam post up. In general, having Bam post up the other team’s point guard would be a great possession. Not if that point guard is Marcus Smart. Bam moves him a little bit, but as I said, Smart is a ball magnet (nice). Bam can’t transfer the ball from his knees to his shoulders because Smart gets a piece. It rolls aimlessly out of bounds, Miami ball. Smart doesn’t record a stat, he doesn’t get credit for forcing a miss or causing a turnover, but imagine if that was Kemba Walker playing PG. Or IT, or Dennis Schroder. That’s two points for Miami. It’s these types of things Smart constantly delivers that add up to success for the Celtics over the course of the season. Sustained solidness (apparently that’s a word).

This second play is from last night’s Pistons game. Grant sets a screen on someone and Smart ends up matched up on him (Jerami not Grant Williams). You’re going to have to take my word for this because NBCSB felt like we needed a 4 second close up of Cade Cunningham on the bench while the ball was being inbounded. I love how Smart defends Grant as he’s going to set a screen for CuJo. Smart doesn’t just let him walk into the screen allowing CuJo to time it up and create more space. He fucking awkwardly bumps and grinds on him like a middle school Wayne Spooney during winter formal dancing to Ja Rule’s latest hit. That makes a switch very easy and allows Jaylen to anticipate and stay in good position once the switch occurs. At this point Detroit has 8 seconds on the shot clock, not exactly enough time to run another action, CuJo is forced to do the impossible, Iso Marcus Smart. He actually does an ok job getting into the lane and creating space. Smart takes a bump, but somehow recovers and gets back to contest the shot. It’s a miss and Boston is going the other way. Marcus Smart sucks to play against.

This play is an example of Smart clogging things up so much the Heat are forced into a bad iso that goes nowhere. Smart’s gonna start out on Dedmon here who sets a screen for Herro. This is when the fun starts. Smart jumps out on Herro to prevent him taking an open pull up. He and Grant switch back between Herro and Dedmon. Then Dedmon comes to run a dribble hand off with Robinson. Smart basically hides behind Dedmon waiting to ambush Robinson once he gets the ball, and then he strikes. Look at how far back he forces Robinson. Dude got the dribble handoff at the 3 point line! Now he’s passing sideways, 35 feet from the hoop with 8 seconds on the clock. Smart’s all over the place on two of the deadliest shooters in the league. Herro tries to go at Grant late in the clock and gets his shit stuffed, but Smart was really the guy that made Miami’s life hell. Amazing stuff.

The last play is from the recent Hornets game. Classic Smart in every way on this play. If you look to the right of the screen at the start, you can see Smart directing everyone’s matchups, extremely important in semi-transition like this where cross-matches are common. Smart ends up on whichever Plumlee that is. Smart knows that Plums isn’t going to punish him on the block, so occupies the paint almost like the Cs are in zone. Unfortunately since Charlotte pushed, Lamelo has Horford up top in a cross-match. NOT IDEAL. Guess what, it doesn’t fucking matter. Smart reads it so perfectly, slides into position, gives up his body, and takes the charge. Smart steals another 2 points from the opposition. Smart is like the Hamburgalar if his obsession was points and not mystery meat.

Like I said at the top, everyone knows Smart is a great defensive player, but I’m not sure we appreciate just how good he truly is. His combination of tenacity, physicality, instincts, IQ, and athleticism make him a tough matchup for just about every player, no matter their position or skillset. It’s a cheat code to have a PG this good at defense. There’s no doubt the axiom “great offense beats great defense” is true, but man, Marcus Smart sure makes me think about it.

Part 2 Coming Soon — Marcus Smart, Undercover Offensive Juggernaut

This is the shameless self-promotion portion of the post. Please check me out on twitter @Wspooney and subscribe to the Celtics Reddit Podcast and the Podcast’s Youtube channel of the same name (rate and subscribe!). Also, shoutout to /u/brutalgash for the pun. What’s the point of writing something if the title doesn’t have a pun?

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