There aren’t enough intensifying adjectives to describe how poorly Marcus Smart is shooting the ball this season. And I know this topic has been beaten into the ground already, but I don’t care. 40 percent shooting is probably out of the question for him as a player, this year or any year, but dipping below 30 percent is reserved for dudes who played in the 1950’s and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. And Marcus Smart, apparently.
After tonight he should be a bit over the 30-line, so that’s good. Two insanely good shooting games by his standards has made it so that, overall, his excellent defense/intangibles/acne counteract the damage he does on offense. If he could only score a little bit better, he’d be a very valuable player. It’s easy to say, but he needs to at least find a reliable three-ball if he wants to be remembered as anything other than a disappointment (notice how I avoided that word that starts with B).
Tonight was a great game for him, 6 of 7 from deep or whatever, but it doesn’t mean much. He’s shot like this before, and it doesn’t last. If anything, he will chuck more bricks than ever next game in a futile attempt to regain the mojo he had tonight.