Marcus Smart embodies the Celtics’ grit

Marcus Smart had a Peak Marcus Smart performance in the Boston Celtics’ Game 2 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The term “winning plays” is always used to describe what Marcus Smart brings to the Celtics. While Smart’s shot selection is often rather ambitious given his historically bad success rate, he makes up for his awful shooting with relentless intensity, toughness and an innate ability to make key plays at the right time.

Smart’s performance in the Celtics’ 107-94 win over the Cavaliers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals was a perfect example of this. Smart embodies the edge Boston brings to the floor every single night, an edge the Cavaliers have been sorely lacking in this series.

Just look at what happened in the fourth quarter of Game 2. After Smart helped the Celtics come back from an 11-point deficit late in the first half, their offense began to short-circuit in the fourth quarter, giving Cleveland an opening to get back in the game. The Cavaliers made things semi-interesting, but it was Boston that continuously made the important hustle plays to keep Cleveland at bay.

Smart, of course, was in the middle of this. He thwarted one potential transition opportunity by stealing the ball from Jeff Green and saving the ball with a dive out of bounds:

On another sequence, Smart single-handedly outhustled the entire Cavaliers team by tipping out an offensive rebound on a missed Al Horford 3-pointer, then barged into the lane for a putback off a Jayson Tatum miss seconds later:

Naturally, Smart also got himself involved when J.R. Smith committed a flagrant foul by pushing Horford in the back as he was jumping for the ball under the basket:

Smart is never hesitant to mix it up with opponents and will always have his teammates’ backs, which is yet another reason why the Celtics love him so much. He’s not going to let them get punked.

Despite a 3-of-9 shooting performance that dropped his postseason shooting mark to 34 percent, Smart finished a game-best plus-21 because he did just about everything else right. He ran pick-and-rolls beautifully and handed out nine assists (including three in the final minute of the first half to keep the Celtics within striking distance), while also snatching five rebounds and four steals:

Looking even further than the normal box score numbers, NBA.com’s hustle stats tracked Smart with four deflections, four loose balls recovered and 13 contested shots. No Celtic had more in any of these categories than Smart. He also did a terrific job “gooning it up” in the post and not making it easy for bigger players to establish position:

After the game, both LeBron James and Ty Lue praised Smart for all the little things he does on the court. Lue even specifically referenced “winning plays” and made a plea to his team in the process, according to Jared Weiss of The Athletic:

"“The same impact he always has, just winning basketball. He makes winning plays. If there’s 50-50 balls, he’s gonna get it. We have to find someone who can match his toughness.”"

The Celtics have done a lot of winning since Smart returned to the lineup from his thumb injury. They’re 8-2 with him back on the court, with just one loss against the Bucks and 76ers each.

Not surprisingly, Smart’s return has been felt the most on the defensive end. Boston was an elite defensive team this season, but there was slippage when he missed several different chunks of time over the latter half of the year. In these playoffs, the Celtics have allowed only 98.9 points per 100 possessions in Smart’s 305 minutes, per NBA.com. That’s 2.4 points per 100 possessions better than the next best Celtic, Tatum.

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With Smart’s grit rubbing off on everybody else, plus Horford’s terrific all-around play and the rapid development of the youngsters, Brad Stevens and Co. improbably find themselves two wins aways from the NBA Finals despite the absences of Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward. This team has coalesced into a monster that not only wins because of talent and coaching, but because it simply works harder than everybody else.

Marcus Smart can be thanked for some of that.