Calming court
After losing mother to cancer last month, hardwood a haven for Marcus Smart
Marcus Smart continues to find refuge on the basketball court.
Marcus Smart has always seen the basketball court as a place of refuge.
It was that way as a kid growing up on the rough south side of Dallas, as a high school star transplanted to suburban Flower Mound, as a college phenom at Oklahoma State. Even though his bull-in-a-china-shop style might convince NBA types otherwise, Smart is never more tranquil than when he is on the court.
The hardwood will even be haven Thursday as Smart and the Boston Celtics travel to Oklahoma City to face tough environs and a desperate team.
"Being on the court
is a great thing for me," Smart said in a phone interview after practice the other day. "It feels good. It feels real good."
These days, good vibes aren't easy to come by.
Not after Smart's mom died. A self-proclaimed mama's boy, Smart went back to Texas for a few days last spring while rehabilitating a torn tendon is his right thumb.
Camellia Smart told her son then that she had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone marrow cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome.
It causes abnormalities in the blood-forming cells, and while a bone marrow transplant was an option, the treatment might've done more harm than good for the 63-year-old.
There were tears and prayers and hours spent talking about what Camellia could do. But they also talked about Marcus.
Doctors were saying his surgically repaired thumb was as good as it was going to get, but Smart still wasn't sure if he should play even as the Celtics started the playoffs against the Bucks.
"If you give up and you quit," Camellia finally told him, "then I'll quit."
Less than two weeks later, Smart returned for Game 5 and immediately changed the tenor of the series. Boston had softened defensively and lost two games in Milwaukee, but Smart solidified the Celtics, who won the series and went all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals.
But even as the guard was playing some of the biggest games of his career, his heart was back home — and as soon as the Celtics' playoff run ended, he went to be with his mom.
"Just trying to spend as much time as I could with her not knowing the exact timetable of when or if the day would come," he said. "Just trying to make sure I say my 'love yous.'"
He made sure she knew how much he loved her, how much she meant to him, how much she changed his life.
Marcus also wanted Camellia to know that regardless of what happened, he would be OK because of her.
"She raised me the right way," he said.
On Sept. 16, Camellia died.
The month since then has been difficult. Smart, who signed a four-year, $52 million extension with the Celtics in the offseason, has been able to steel himself for the tough moments. Going to the funeral. Returning to Boston. Opening training camp. Starting the season.
But grief finds him at unexpected moments.
After games, he'll return to the locker room and eventually fish his phone out of his locker. He'll look at his missed calls and see he doesn't have one from his mom.
In that moment, he'll realize that he forgot.
"You prepare for the big things, but the little things are what kind of gets you and chokes up and makes you realize this really happened," he said, "and there's nothing you can do to change it."
Basketball doesn't change reality, but being on the court allows Marcus Smart to escape it.
"The biggest thing now for me is to be out here," he said. "When I'm out here, I'm going to give it everything I have."