The Celtics blew a 19 point third-quarter lead to the Bulls last night, as they wound up losing by 14. That prompted Marcus Smart to air out some frustrations, as he feels it’s too obvious that the offense is ran to give Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown their shots.
“I would just like to play basketball,” Smart said. “Every team knows we are trying to go to Jayson and Jaylen and every team is programmed and studies to stop Jayson and Jaylen. I think everybody’s scouting report is to make those guys try to pass the ball. They don’t want to pass the ball and that’s something that they’re going to learn.”
While Smart is “proud of the progress” the young wings have made, he also believes that he’s losing his effectiveness without the ball in his hands.
“There’s only so much I can do without the ball in my hands, I’m just standing in the corner,” Smart said. “We’re running plays for our best players, every team knows that. They do a good job of shutting that down. We can’t allow that. When they shut that down, we can’t keep trying to go to those guys. We gotta avoid that and find another way to give them the ball in the spots where they need the ball.
Like I said for me, I can only do so much just standing there in the corner or when I give the ball away. I do everything I can on the other end to try to combat that. I try to talk, I try to make plays, get those guys the ball where they need it, where they want it.”
Brown and Tatum are both averaging over 25 points per game, but there’s a huge dropoff in scoring on their roster after them.
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