Veteran Boston Celtics point guard Marcus Smart’s scuffle with Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young was enough to get him ejected for the final minute and a half of the Celtics’ road win over the Hawks on Saturday night, but it didn’t seem to bother his teammates too much afterward.
“I just saw them both go down,” explained big man Al Horford via MassLive’s Brian Robb. “Them chirping at each other and going down. All we were doing is try to do damage control and split them up the best we could.” The sentiment seemed to be shared by head coach Joe Mazzulla, who related that “(i)t’s part of it. You have to navigate in the chaos.”
“Whatever happened, happened,” echoed star forward Jayson Tatum. “The mentality was to finish the game and we did.”
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Had the kerfuffle sparked a response from Atlanta that led them to a win, the ranks might have been closed a bit more regarding Smart’s decision to interpret Young’s jumper as intentionally contacting his nether regions.
But the Marcus Smart experience thrives on intensity, and his first-to-the-floor heroics come hand-in-hand with occasional overreactions. Given that, we are no more concerned about the ejection than his teammates seem to be.
At least, so long as it remains a rare occurrence for the Flower Mound native given his team will need the best version of Smart as often as possible if they hope to win a title.
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