Marcus Smart made just two shots Saturday night. He also was one of the Boston Celtics’ best players on the floor.
If you’re wondering how both of those statements can be true, we don’t blame you. The Celtics guard couldn’t solve his offensive struggles against the Phoenix Suns, scoring just nine points on 2 of 7 shooting and missing all five of his 3-point attempts.
But Smart prefers to alter games without altering the scoreboard, and he did that on several occasions in Boston’s 102-99 win at Talking Stick Resort Arena.
The scrappy guard tallied a team-high four assists and pulled down eight rebounds, none bigger than this board in the fourth quarter, when he outmuscled three Suns players on the offensive glass and found Jonas Jerebko for a huge 3-pointer that helped stop the bleeding during Phoenix’s late run.
“Those are the things that make Marcus special,” head coach Brad Stevens said in a postgame interview on CSN New England. “Sometimes those go in a box score, sometimes they don’t. But he does them every game. That’s why I don’t get too caught up in the box score stuff with him. He impacts winning, and (Saturday night) was a good example of that.”
Smart’s box scores have been pretty ugly, as the 22-year-old hasn’t been able to buy a bucket lately: He’s scored just 14 points in his last three games combined and hasn’t made a 3-pointer since last Sunday. But rather than bring his whole team down with his shooting woes, Smart simply is doing all the other things that make him such a promising young player.
“That’s my main focus: Even though my shot isn’t falling, find a way to impact this game,” Smart told reporters, as aired on CSN New England. “We have a lot of guys on this team that can do a lot of different things, so when my shot’s not falling, I try to pick us up some other way, especially when we’ve got guys that aren’t knocking down shots.”
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— Let’s hit a few other notes from Celtics-Suns:
— It wasn’t quite Michael Jordan-esque, but Avery Bradley had himself a bit of a “flu game” Saturday.
The Celtics guard came down with an illness after Wednesday’s game and spent two days in the hospital receiving treatment. He didn’t travel with the club to Phoenix, but felt well enough to fly cross-country Saturday morning to join his teammates in time for the game.
Boston probably is glad Bradley did, as he dropped 13 points in the first half and added a key jumper in the fourth quarter to help the C’s earn the win.
“It’s hard to come back and play like that,” Stevens said of Bradley. “But I think the hardest part about (Saturday) was not how he felt on Thursday but the fact that he sat on a six-hour flight and then got off the plane and played. That’s not easy. So, he did a good job.”
— It appears the Celtics once again will have an open roster spot.
Boston is not expected to sign rookie Coty Clarke after his second 10-day contract expires Sunday, a source told The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach.
Clarke spent much of the season with the D-League affiliate Maine Red Claws before appearing in three games for the Celtics this month. The 6-foot-7 forward made both of his 3-point attempts to finish with six total points for Boston.
— The Celtics didn’t get much help from the rest of the league Saturday, as both the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Hornets won to keep pace with Boston in the crowded Eastern Conference. The C’s did pass the idle Miami Heat for sole possession of fourth place in the East, however.
On the other end of the spectrum, a Brooklyn Nets win and the Suns’ loss meant Phoenix sunk further below Brooklyn, which will give the Celtics its first-round pick in the 2016 NBA Draft but currently owns the fourth-worst record in the NBA.
— Don’t expect to see Jae Crowder in the next few days, as the Celtics swingman won’t return for Monday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, per Himmelsbach.
Yet Crowder, who has missed Boston’s last seven games with a high ankle sprain, is traveling with the C’s and could be back on the floor later in the team’s five-game road trip.
— The Celtics really are entering uncharted waters with their current West Coast swing.
Saturday’s game marked the first time Boston has played a regular season game on the West Coast on March 26 or later since the 1988-89 season, a period of 27 years. Most NBA clubs often get their cross-country road trips out of the way in the middle of the season, but Isaiah Thomas certainly doesn’t seem to mind:
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
