Marcus Smart - team-highs in minutes, assists, steals and plus/minus vs. Cavaliers
The Celtics are now 2-0 when Marcus Smart starts the game. In last night's 128-95 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, he logged a team-high 29 minutes, while also taking top honors in assists (seven), steals (three) and plus/minus (+33). And he never turned the ball over.
If you are careless with the ball in any way shape or form around Marcus Smart, you might as well just hand it to him.
— Tom Westerholm (@Tom_NBA) December 1, 2018
On the offensive end, Marcus scored 12 points on 5-of-7 from the field and 2-of-4 from beyond the arc. It certainly seems that the Kyrie Irving-Smart starting back-court is working.
Marcus Smart's 3-point percentage over last three games: 53.8 on 7-for-13 shooting. His true shooting percentage for the season is 54 percent (career-best).
— Tomek Kordylewski (@Timi_093) December 1, 2018
In reference to the above tweet, Smart's True Shooting percentage for last night's game was 85.7% and 76.1% over the last three games, good enough for 6th in the NBA for players logging 24-or-more minutes per game.
Kyrie Irving has stated that having Marcus as his back-court partner has been beneficial. We saw the proof last night. Kyrie scored 29 points in only 27 minutes. He shot a terrific 75% on field goals and 71% on threes. This Dynamic Duo works. It needs to continue.
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Photo via Elise Amendola/AP Photo