Marcus Smart said he believes he’s had a “mediocre” season on defense. He said he’s dealing with a nagging ankle issue that has impacted his mobility.
Marcus Smart said he believes he’s had a “mediocre” season on defense. He said he’s dealing with a nagging ankle issue that has impacted his mobility.
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) March 15, 2023
by Brad-Stevens
33 Comments
probably should have shut him down for some part of the season to rest the ankle. might be too late to do that now. i know we gave him a small break but it doesn’t seem to have been for long enough.
Rest him some idc about 2 v 1 seed just be healthy
That explains why his lateral quickness looks shot
Rest him or atleast have him come off the bench
Maybe I’ll get some hate but I thought he was playing really good before his ankle injury. He was playing good defense and was a great playmaker. Especially for jaylen brown early on. He seemed to get him (both jays) some easy buckets.
Absolutely matches the eye test.
It’s always been a fine line testing his near-instant reactions against the pure quickness of some guards, but he just looks slow right now.
You know what will fix it? How about chunk a bunch of 3s and hope to make them. Or drive into the lane with no plan for what to do when the defense simply collapse around him and simply throw the ball away. Repeat this a few times a game and mess up the game flow for the rest of the team. Good stuff there.
Then sit out until you’re better
Then don’t play. He’s hurting the team. Has been objectively awful since coming back
And then still gets to play 30+ minutes a night. Marcus Smart with mediocre defense is a bench player full stop.
We have so much guard depth with White and Brogdon, and starting JB at the 2. Rest Smart and Rob for the playoffs.
That explains why he keeps taking and missing ill advised three pointers
Doesn’t explain his horrendous shot selection, stupid ass turnovers, and getting techs lol
He looked a lot more active last game, hopefully he can work through it.
Benching Brogdon has (so far, knock of wood) kept the dude relatively healthy and has been fantastic. Why can’t we do this to Marcus? He’s killing himself and hurting the team bad. D white has had a far better season. Let him start
Sit then
I don’t have a quote for this, but early in the year, Marcus missed some time with his ankle saying it was a bone bruise from twisting it last year in the ECF. Those don’t go away playing on it every other day.
Please start Derrick White
Stop playing him to close out games already.
Fuck the weirdos in this thread still trying to clown him for his recent play when he’s literally telling you doesn’t feel 100% and is still injured
Man why do we always have some kind of public excuse. Grant plays like dogshit…it comes out he has a nagging injury… now this. Why not just say I played bad and I need to be better. I don’t understand this weak minded shit man
Anybody with eyes can see Smart is a step behind from where he usually is.
At this point, we aren’t getting 1st. Which isn’t great, but still fine. I don’t see any other team beating us in 7 really and I’d be willing to roll the dice of facing some tougher teams like Philly/Cavs. Might as well just rest a bunch of people and head into the playoffs healthier, even if the road is harder if we drop a seed or 2. Rob, Smart, Tatum, Brown. etc. Let the bench players get more minutes and hopefully steal some wins and get some reps before the playoffs.
If our players are suffering from nagging injuries, it seems like no matter who we play, we are going to be severely hindered. I could be way off though, I just saw how depleted we were last playoffs from injuries.
what the fuck were we thinking having him come back the game before the all star break? he should have gotten 3 more weeks rest after that
I don’t understand players playing mediocre to poorly compared to their norm when they are obviously injured. Just rest. You still collect your paycheck.
If this is true, why aren’t they resting him sooner? We have good guard depth and if Marcus isnt 100% hes far from as impactful as he needs to be to justify playing him with an injury.
Also, the ankle doesn’t explain some of the other areas in which he’s been below average and lacked a good approach to games.
I really don’t want to see smart. Rob or Tatum play cuz they haven’t done shit but hurt the team. Give me the end of bench guys playing the right way and not this pathetic shit I’ve been watching
Then sit the fuck down
If Smart is mediocre on defense then he’s literally just dead weight holding the team back
I don’t get why he came back before the All Star break then. That’s so confusing.
Bubble wrap him until April. They have some of the best guard depth in the league. No reason to not use it now.
Time to bench him
As an aside, I think this also vindicates people that have referenced advanced defensive stats to make the case that Smart was having a mediocre defensive season. I’ve had a couple of users here refer to that Brad Stevens quote where he said he deletes e-mails that use advanced defensive stats for individual players but those stats have reflected favorably on Smart for years. They’re now reflecting disfavorably in a year where Smart acknowledges his defense has fallen off so there is validity to using advanced defensive metrics to at least bolster an argument.
Brogdon and White > Smart