There was a lot to get excited about Sunday afternoon at TD Garden.
The Boston Celtics made easy work of the Cleveland Cavaliers with a 118-72 victory and got help from fan-favorite Tacko Fall, Marcus Smart and Robert Williams III.
Fall checked into the game nearly halfway through the fourth quarter and didn’t take long to up Boston’s lead even more when he threw down a dunk he barely had to jump for. The pictures alone captured just how much the 7-foot-5 center’s teammates loved it, and Smart revealed he nearly fell off the chairs while celebrating after jumping onto them in excitement.
“I was just trying to be the same height as Tacko,” Smart said after the game, per NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg.
But Smart knows what it’s like to be the new guy needing confidence in a new place. And now that he’s the longest tenured member of the Celtics, he wanted to help get the confidence up for Fall.
“I learned as a young guy coming in, confidence is big,” Smart said. “And we’re trying to give our young guys as much confidence as they can handle, as much as they need, as much as we can give because we’re going to need them. We got a lot of new faces out there, a lot of young new faces. We need these guys to have as much confidence as they can because, when things get tight, we need that confidence to keep going.”
Fall’s Exhibit 10 contract was converted to a two-way deal Sunday, so he’ll spend a majority of the season with Boston’s G-League affiliate, the Maine Red Claws. He can spend no more than 45 days with the C’s, but we’re sure he’ll gain plenty of confidence through the rest of training camp.
And he’ll most likely bring the same excitement to the fans in Maine that he has in Boston.
