Usually when I want to harvest the sweet ambrosia that is Celtics fan tears, all I have to do is say something like “you paid Marcus Smart fifty million dollars to hustle and suck at shooting”, strap on the apparatus (just a pair of goggles with some tubes attached for the tears to run through), and enjoy my refreshing beverage. That won’t work tonight, because Smart didn’t suck at shooting in this game. Everyone else on the Celtics did, but not him. What a twist!
Instead, I’ll just say “you lost to a team without its superstar while Brad Stevens failed to make any adjustments and Jaylen Brown got outscored on the night by Jaylen Hoard”. That’ll really get the tears flowing, I’ll bet. I need to find some Celtics fans to try this out. I’m thirsty.
Smart hasn’t been very good on offense since returning from injury, but that’s fine. I’m sure he’s still hustling all over the place, and there’s no way he’d let himself be bad on defense, so as usual, the blame for the Celtics mini-slump can be placed elsewhere. Though their offense feels a little out of sync, maybe a little bit of blame can be placed on Smart for chucking so many shots. Not tonight, but other nights.