Bench Smart / Marcus Calls Out The Jays

[Phantom255x]

Believe me, I know the Jays are part of the problem too.

But I'm becoming real sick of Smart now. First off, as a STARTING PG this guy has 0 assists in 33 minutes last night. Since nailing the 3 against the Knicks on opening night, he's been terrible behind the arc but keeps hoisting away anyways. He does this often too (heroballing).

He's calling out guys currently, and will continue to do so but he'll rarely call himself out for anything. He's acting like he's the true 3rd star on the team when he's clearly not. Never has been either.

I mean I still love Smart but I think a trade would be best for all parties involved. Just a shame we signed him to that extension already so I think we're stuck with him for at least 1, maybe even 2 full seasons now.

[Mahk E Mahk]

marcus is playing horrible basketball, and using the press to callout the j’s or ime isn’t appropriate. that said, he’s not wrong.

[celts55]

Question. As he recently signed an extension, is there a restriction on when he can get traded?

[slamtheking]

so what event do all of you think will happen first?

1) Celtics trade Smart

2) Celtics fire Ime

if the season continues to go down the toilet, I can easily see the team as a seller at the deadline and Smart being one of the pieces moved for other assets.  no matter how bad the season goes, Ime will be here at least through the deadline and likely the season because no coaching candidates worth their salt would want to take over a team having a fire sale.

[Roy H.]

Smart for Fournier, haha.

[td450]

I went back and watched the 4th quarter. We lost that quarter 39-11.

If you had to cite only one thing, they lost because of the Bulls played much harder.

Every element of the game was a disaster, but the defense was particularly bad.

I see no evidence that the defender that Marcus was a few years ago still exists. Everyone was bad on defense, but Marcus can't even stay in the league if he isn't above average on D and he was as bad as anyone.

I get that we need to give them some time but I would have expected an organizational critique of what they need to do to improve to be there. They might need time to pull it off, but they should show that they understand what the problems are. They don't look like they even know what's wrong right now.

If you are a Tatum or Smart fan in particular , you should be concerned. Both guys came back this year with zero insight on how to improve.

[wiley]

Well, Marcus is right.

Far too much one one play from our two best talents.  It used to be just Tatum who too often went individual.  Then as Brown's handle improved he started doing some of the same one on one stuff and his formerly low turnovers started to rise. 
I mentioned it at the time....as others have said Brad just let the trend continue, until we became a very iso dependent team and had that terrible assist rate of last year.

Brown can adjust much more easily than Tatum to team oriented ball, if only because his game is a bit more well rounded than Tatum's.  Tatum's got more talent and can bring back more in a trade...
I'm a fan of both, but can't have both these guys on the team and still play Celtic basketball.

I forgot when last year, but at some point I think we got a glimpse of the team playing old style Celtic basketball with the ball whipping all over the place....it was the bench...they may not have won it but it was sure fun to watch...

[Celtics2021]

I don't think Smart should have called out the J's.  That said, below are the number of shots a Celtic has taken per frontcourt touch -- in other words, when they get the ball, what percentage of time do they shoot it?

Player   FGA/Frountcourt Touch

Kanter   1.00

Brown   0.60

Tatum   0.58

Parker   0.55

Schroder   0.45

Langford   0.44

Richardson   0.40

Hernangomez   0.39

Nesmith   0.36

Smart   0.35

Horford   0.34

G. Williams   0.31

Pritchard   0.31

R. Williams   0.27

Fernando   0.00

Meanwhile, here are the numbers from last year.  Brown is shooting it 15% more frequently when he gets the ball in the frontcourt than last year, and Tatum 25%.  Smart is shooting it slightly less frequently than last year.  Part of that is due to the loss of Kemba, but the ball is truly stopping when it finds the Js on offense this year.  If I dug deeper, I might even be able to find 4th quarter and OT splits on this, and I bet it'd be even more pronounced.  The first half was full of terrific ball movement.  The second half, especially beginning at the end of the third quarter, when Tatum and Schroder came in for Marcus and Jaylen, not so much.

Player   FGA/Frountcourt Touch

Walker   0.62

Waters   0.55

Brown   0.52

Edwards   0.51

Tatum   0.46

Pritchard   0.45

Parker   0.43

Fournier   0.41

Teague   0.41

Nesmith   0.41

Ojeleye   0.40

Smart   0.36

Langford   0.33

Fall   0.32

Theis   0.31

Thompson   0.29

G. Williams   0.29

Kornet   0.29

Green   0.27

Wagner   0.27

R. Williams   0.25

[gift]

Everybody is building their self defense forts around themselves…..like hey look

“ It’s NOT ME ….it’s everybody else” 

WRONG …

Something that's bothered me that last few years. The young players have grown up in an excuse culture. Whether it was Hayward's injury, Kyries' injury, the "front office and coaching staff being to blame", Tatum's COVID, the bubble, Kemba's injury, Jaylen's COVID... there's always an excuse.

The early Brad Stevens teams seemed to fight through adversity. Recent years it seems like the team leans on adversity to explain away lack of success.

[hpantazo]

marcus is playing horrible basketball, and using the press to callout the j’s or ime isn’t appropriate. that said, he’s not wrong.

Pretty much this. I mean, Tatum literally dribbled himself into the corner and got trapped several times last night during the 4th quarter, and didn't even look to move the ball until it was too late.

[Rosco917]

Smart shouldn't have called out the J's in the media. And it's true enough he's not playing very well, AND should be replaced in the starting unit. The problem with starting Schroder, as we know, is he's not going to be around very long.

BUT

Both J's are hesitant, average to below average passers.

The entire first three-quarters of the game saw Brown scoring well and at good team pace. Then the 4th quarter came and the C's slowed the game down and began looking for Tatum. Brown was all but out of the picture. This, just as the Bulls defense intensified. Almost as if they knew what the Celtics would do!

The league is now discovering that Jayson doesn't pass well out of the double team, he tends to take off balance shots with multiple hands in his face. For three quarters we had few turnovers... not true in that 4th quarter where we fumbled the ball away several times.

The poor defense was indeed poor...but more the result of the horrible offense.

[Indocelts]

Yes, it seems that Tatum enjoys posting up and waiting for the double team to come, but then he simply doesn’t have the move to pass out of the double team.

He should be more active attacking the basket or initiate the iso before the double team comes.

[footey]

I'm much more concerned about our defense.  There was no second line of defense when Lavine would blast by his defender. Rob Williams is a shadow of himself relative to last season.  Other teams are killing us inside finishing.

[Birdman]

Tatum & Brown are only 2 I would keep..maybe Schroeder..never was a fan of smart or TimeLord

[gift]

I'm much more concerned about our defense.  There was no second line of defense when Lavine would blast by his defender. Rob Williams is a shadow of himself relative to last season.  Other teams are killing us inside finishing.

I don't know if Rob is trying to conserve himself or actively struggling, but he's not at peak productivity either way.