But Marcus Smart was Sunday night.
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Taking on the challenge of going toe to toe with Thunder guard Russell Westbrook, Smart shot 9-for-14 from the field and hauled in eight rebounds as the two intense guards battled for four quarters.
The first time Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart took on the Oklahoma City Thunder, he set a career high.
Smart and Westbrook were matched up on each other for most of the night and engaged in a few pretty heated trash talk, with both players picking up technical fouls before the night was over. Westbrook had a game-high 27 points on 5 of 20 shooting.
“Don’t get it twisted, he (Smart) had a good game”, Westbrook said.
Smart added: “That’s the type of guy that Russ is”. Despite his youth, Smart said he wasn’t going to back down from the veteran. “We’ll see him again”. As a team, the Celtics outrebounded the Thunder 47-34. Westbrook responded by freely launching deep balls; he didn’t make another, missing all eight after that, a few of them ill-advised.
Serge Ibaka scored 16 points, and the Thunder had a season-low point total and their worst shooting performance. But the Celtics cut the lead down to 52-45 at halftimeThe Celtics stormed all the way back in the third quarter to tie the game at 72-72.
The Celtics clawed back from an 11-point third-quarter deficit, and with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Isaiah Thomas hit a 3-pointer from the left arc, giving them a 77-74 lead, their first since early in the second period.
Thunder coach Billy Donovan believes that his team’s offensive struggles can be attributed to a lack of ball movement, or perhaps a lack of general awareness. Enes Kanter and Kyle Singler each chipped in eight points off the bench, but starters Steven Adams, Andre Roberson and Anthony Morrow combined to play 70 minutes and score just 13 points. “To their credit, we’ve done a better job the last five games.”… It gave us a little bit of momentum heading into the fourth.
“There are times where we’re getting the ball to really good areas of the floor and we have to recognize and identify the next pass to the next pass sometimes”, Donovan echoed.
James scored 37 points for Cleveland, which lost for the first time since dropping a 97-95 decision at Chicago in the season opener on October 27.
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Bucks: La Marsellaise, the national anthem of France, was played before the game in remembrance of those killed and injured in the Paris attacks.
