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Woj: Celtics guard Marcus Smart will undergo surgery on his thumb today, but there's hope he can return sometime in the playoffs, league source tells ESPN.

https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/974668416236834817

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Jay King
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@ByJayKing

This is cool. Jayson Tatum surprised future Duke star RJ Barrett with the Gatorade National Player of the Year trophy. https://youtu.be/tFfixHgpG70

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Jay King
✔
@ByJayKing

This is cool. Jayson Tatum surprised future Celticsstar RJ Barrett with the Gatorade National Player of the Year trophy. https://youtu.be/tFfixHgpG70

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Not a whole lot of Celtics stuff but Kyrie got a little shout out.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22778687/zach-lowe-10-things-like-including-kyrie-irving-nba

The unsung brilliance of Kyrie Irving

With Irving out resting his knee, let's take a minute to appreciate his splendid first season with the Boston Celtics. We tend to focus on the brilliance of Irving's dribbling exhibitions -- the crossovers and step-backs that flow together in a liquid dance. They are magic. There is some basketball IQ in them, too -- Irving thinking two moves ahead, using the first hard dribble to set up the final blow.

But Irving's overall basketball IQ has always been a bit underrated, probably because it hasn't translated into enough playmaking for others. It showed in his screening ballet with LeBron James in Cleveland -- the way Irving disguised the direction of his picks until the very last second, and rolled downhill (semi-illegally) into the chest of LeBron's defender, dragging the defense into the very switch it feared.

Another recent example:

Irving calls over Marcus Morris knowing the Rockets will switch. (Houston's switching has flummoxed teams all season, and they seem to be doing even more lately.) Even a clean switch leaves a split-second window between the moment one defender leaves and the next arrives. Irving is playing for that window.

He dribbles once, but he doesn't intend to go anywhere. It is a super-quick, low dribble designed to activate his shooting motion while James Harden is still several feet away -- to rise up before Harden can close out.

Let's hope Irving gets back healthy so Boston can make an honest playoff run.

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Had Tatum been drafted by a typical bottomfeeder team, these are the types of stats I'd expect him to put up. He's a 19/20 year old rookie with clear gifts. On a bad team, he'd be less efficient, but he'd be putting up more stats. Tonight was a perfect example of that.

Tonight in the close loss he had 19 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds with 9-23 shooting (39%).

I've said it before, but Tatum genuinely reminds me a lot rookie Kevin Durant. As a rookie, Durant averaged 20.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists, but he wasn't efficient. He took 17 field goal attempts per game for a bottomfeeder Seattle team. He only shot 43% for the season and 29% from three. There were plenty of games during that 20 win season that Durant put up total clunkers... 7-22 against Denver, 7-21 against Utah, 7-20 against Detroit, 7-22 against the Hornets, 7-21 against Washington, 6-23 against the Lakers, 7-21 against Atlanta, 7-21 against the Knicks, 2-17 against Houston, etc.

I'm sure Tatum's overall efficiency this season (crazy 47%/43%/83% shooting) is impacted by playing on a quality team in a limited role where he takes less than 10 shots per game. But no doubt, if the guy was playing on a bad team he'd be getting more shot attempts. Just like Durant, he'd have some good games and some bad games with some overall rough efficiency, but the kid would come close to averaging 20 per game.

Personally, I loved seeing Tatum get a bunch of attempts tonight even though we came up short. He needs these kind of reps. These are the kind of reps he can't get when everyone on this team is healthy. The outcome wasn't great, but it's a great learning experience. Kid has a chance to be really special.

Quote (pAiLiXziX @ Mar 16 2018 11:33am)

What a dumbass.. I have protected and defended Smart for many of his actions, but this along with last year punching the wall in Wizards game definitely takes the cake.

Quote (WatcherOfTheSkies @ Mar 16 2018 01:59pm)

TLDR all this above but we should get everyone as healthy as possible for the playoffs, idgaf if we lose every single reg season game from now just get everyone healthy.

Quote (ZxFamily-GuyxZ @ Mar 16 2018 11:19am)

What you mean?
You do know he tore his tendons when he dove for a loose ball against the Pacers right?
The current injury isn't related to the LA thing

Celtics should go ahead and have Tatum get his surgery done as well

Quote (ZxFamily-GuyxZ @ Mar 16 2018 02:05pm)

Hopefully give Nader, Semi, Allen and Yabu as much time as possible
Want to see what these guys can do

Quote (pAiLiXziX @ Mar 16 2018 02:28pm)

I'm really not scared of any teams in the East this year... As long as we can stay healthy, and not get too busted that we can't get out of the first round, other than that I'm gucci.