Still talking toughness
Smart answers Butler’s barbs
WALTHAM — It’s novel, the idea of someone questioning Marcus Smart’s toughness.
The Celtics guard certainly never heard something like it before when, after his brief nose-to-nose chat with Jimmy Butler in Game 4, the Bulls forward later said, “he is a great actor, acting tough. That is what he does. But I don’t think he’s about that.”
“Never,” Smart said after yesterday’s practice about whether anyone has gone there with him before.
Asked about his reaction, Smart looked towards the nearest camera, raised his voice, and said, “Haha.”
Initially asked to comment, Smart made one passing attempt to deflect the conversation, saying, “I laugh at that. This is about Celtics vs. Chicago Bulls, not Marcus Smart vs. Jimmy.
“I ain’t gotta sit here and say this and that, I’m this, I’m that,” he said. “I ain’t that type of guy. My actions speak harder than words. It ain’t hard to find me, so. . . . But right now I’m focused on my teammates and this series.”
But the more the subject was raised, the more Smart weighed into this verbal scrap with Butler. The cadence of Smart’s words started to accelerate.
Butler had also said Smart wasn’t “about that life.”
“I ain’t gotta talk about what I am about. I could show you, but I’m not going to tell you,” said Smart. “So, like I said, it ain’t hard to find me.
“And you heard him: he said, ‘I don’t think Marcus Smart’s about that life?’ Last time I checked, if you’re going to say somebody ain’t about that life, you should know. Right? But like I said, we’re going to keep this Chicago Bulls vs. Boston Celtics, not Marcus vs. Jimmy.”
These emotions are part and parcel of a good playoff series, of course. The Bulls hit the boiling point first after losing Game 4, not only with Butler questioning Smart’s toughness, but also when coach Fred Hoiberg called out officials for not calling Isaiah Thomas for carrying the ball.
Smart admitted to being partial to this aspect of a playoff series.
“Definitely. I like it. I like it. It would be a problem if it wasn’t,” he said. “That’s playoff basketball. So, like I said, it would be a problem if it wasn’t like that. That’s what I expect. That’s what everybody expects. So that’s what it is. It’s playoff basketball.
“It’s the playoffs,” said Smart. “So emotions are obviously going to be involved. Everybody’s trying to win, so definitely.”
And should Smart and Butler come within a centimeter of each other’s mugs again, the Celtics guard understands that he’ll have to pull himself back.
“I know how important I am to my team, my teammates. They tell me every day,” he said. “So I know it’s going to hurt me more than anybody else. So I have to keep my cool. And I know teams are going to try to get under me because they know how important I am. So they’re going to test me. So I’m just staying focused and doing everything I can to help my team.”
And that is where Brad Stevens would like to leave this especially delicate balance. His team has to play with that so-called chip.
“Our focus is, you have to play with a certain level of intensity, you have to play with a certain level of toughness, but you have to focus on what’s going to help your team win on both ends of the court,” said the Celtics coach. “And that’s that. All that other stuff is not important. We’ve got to focus on what we can control to win the next game.”