Recap: Marcus Smart leads Celtics in Summer League opener

The Celtics opened up the Summer League schedule tonight in Utah against the host Jazz in what might as well have been billed as “Marcus Smart vs. Dante Exum.” That shouldn’t be shocking as they were the 5th and 6th picks last year who both had plenty of fine moment last season against actual NBA competition. Against a collection of rookies getting adjusted to new systems and teammates and scrubs trying to impress scouts, this looked like LeBron vs. Durant.

Oh, they kept score. The final was 100-82 Utah, but no one really cares about that.

Some notes:

Smart attacked the basket more in this game than he did the entire season, I think. Maybe that was a function of trying to avoid re-injuring his ankle, or maybe it was just the ability to actually turn the corner against lesser defenders… but whatever it was, it was nice to see.  Well, except for him hitting the deck A LOT in this game.

To sum Marcus Smart up in one action, he just did a somersault to grab a loose ball in the 3rd quarter of summer league. #Celtics

— Jared Weiss (@CLNS_JaredWeiss) July 7, 2015

I know you don’t want to tell a guy to not want to win and play hard all the time… but shit, man… don’t kill yourself in July. Smart also ran the pick-and-roll nicely with Jordan Mickey. More on that later. Smart’s 3-point shooting, I think, is a perfect poster boy for this new NBA’s “forget the mid-range, attack or shoot 3’s” mentality. If I needed to bet my last $50 on a guy to make a 3, I wouldn’t bet it on Marcus, but he keeps on shooting a TON of them and, in the end, the percentages will generally fall in the range where you can make the argument that he should keep taking 3’s. That number falls somewhere north of 30% usually (not tonight, but it was for a while)… just high enough where he’d need to hit 50% from mid-range to top the efficiency. It’s a bit infuriating, but he’s generally right at that line where the percentages show he might as well keep chucking from 3.

Smart’s final line tonight: 26 points (6-20 fg, 2-10 3pt, 12-13 ft), 8 assists, 5 rebounds.

One last Marcus Smart note:

– James Young still needs to be more aggressive. He didn’t move very much without the ball, which is bothersome because that’s something that doesn’t depend on the competition. I’ll venture to guess about 80% of the results you see in Summer League are bullshit because of various factors (new guys are learning, non-roster guys ball hog to impress scouts, the competition is generally below D-League standards, etc.) but effort isn’t one of them. I’m not going to completely crush the guy because he did try to make some hustle plays like diving on the floor. I’m just not seeing it enough.

He did look a bit more muscular, though.  And he did do this:

As for the new guys…

Terry Rozier didn’t have much of a stat line, but he looked pretty smooth and confident out there. He made plenty of mistakes, like any rookie would in his first taste of “pro” action, but he didn’t look lost. He looked like a guy who, aside from some decisions that he won’t make later in his career, just didn’t have shots fall.

Jordan Mickey had a nice night, mostly executing the pick and roll with Marcus Smart. Now, these results might fall under that 80% I mentioned earlier, but fundamentals are fundamentals, and running the pick and roll the way he did was fundamentally sound. And he finished 7 of his 8 shots, which is nice, and his 16 points was second on the team.

He was not fundamentally sound, however, on the boards. He finished with just 4 in 27 minutes, mostly because he missed a few box outs that could have made his stat line a little more impressive.

RJ Hunter missed all 5 of the shots he took. He needs to get stronger.

If you were watching and wondering where Colton Iverson was…

Colton Iverson has left the Celtics to sign with a European team. He’s been played on roster by Ralph Sampson III.

— Mark Murphy (@Murf56) July 7, 2015

So he went to go get paid. We may never see him play in the NBA.

Celtics take on the Sixers and Jahlil Okafor tomorrow at 7.

Box Score