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Marcus Smart Gets in Skirmish With Heat, Completes Worst 3P Season In NBA History

Marcus Smart continues to impact NBA games despite not shooting a lick.

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Marcus Smart flopped, and then there was a fake fight in the Boston Celtics’ final regular season game against the Miami Heat. Evan Turner was displeased with Goran Dragic bumping Smart.

Here is the “fight.”

 

Smart and the Celts touched off a 34-point swing from halftime to beat the Heat by 10 (they trailed by 24 after two quarters). Now they will get the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

The second NBA season for Smart went well too. He averaged 9 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal and half a game in just 27 minutes a game. That’s really, really good. And it doesn’t even tough on his best asset — his defense. Smart transformed himself into one of the preeminent defenders in the NBA this year (which was always his pro destiny) and continued to do a bunch of Marcus Smart-y things.

“Sometimes those go in a box score, sometimes they don’t,” said Brad Stevens’ of Smart’s impact. “But he does them every game. That’s why I don’t get too caught up in the box score stuff with him. He impacts winning … ”

What he didn’t impact is the idea that the NBA might move the three-point line back. Smart shot it at an historically poor clip this year from long range (again, another thing we all probably saw coming). Here are the five worst three-point percentage seasons in NBA history (history!) (min. 200 attempts).

Marcus Smart (2015-16): 25.3 percent
Antoine Walker (1999-2000): 25.6 percent
Josh Smith (2013-14): 26.4 percent
Michael Carter-Williams (2013-14): 26.4 percent
Corey Brewer (2014-15): 26.8 percent

Now this is a little bit unfair because there are far more threes shot these days than there used to be. But even if you lower the minimum threes attempted to 150, Smart still had the 12th-worst shooting season ever from deep (and he took 241 of them!)

Brad Stevens doesn’t seem to care much.

“He’s going to have his moments and stretches just like anybody else,” Stevens told CSN NE. “When a prideful guy feels challenged, that’s probably a good thing. He’s prideful. He’ll figure that stuff out. He’ll make big ones. He always makes winning plays. He’s an important part of our team.”

And he shouldn’t. Smart does so many other things well. To have a stud youngster like that who simply has to stop doing something rather than start is an envious place to be in. Hopefully, unlike Travis Ford, Stevens is able to convince him to do so.

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