Marcus Smart explains Celtics gritty win over Warriors: ‘That was a dog fight’

Like most Celtics, Thursday night was a rollercoaster ride for Marcus Smart. The point guard helped setup the biggest play of Boston’s win over the Warriors in the closing minutes of regulation with a timely pass to Jaylen Brown who proceeded to hit the game-tying 3. Minutes later, the veteran also gave the game away for Boston with two poor passes within a 10-second span that opened the door for an improbable comeback for Golden State.

“I make one of the dumbest plays of my life,” Smart told 98.5 The Sports Hub after the game of the off-target pass that Jaylen Brown had to scramble to save from going out of bounds.

Ultimately, the Warriors missed a potential game-tying 3 in overtime and the Celtics toughed out a three-point win, snapping a four-game losing streak to the Warriors dating back to the NBA Finals.

“This was a dog fight,” Smart said. “A legit dog fight. It was going to take every dog to come out here to get us this win and they stepped up.”

The victory was the 8th straight for Boston amid an ugly offensive affair that had the team shoot just 39 percent from the field. The Celtics were able to overcome those struggles though and win their first game of the year where they shot under 40 percent from the field despite trailing for nearly the entire second half in regulation.

“I mean, you’re playing against the defending champs. It’s one game, but that game’s always going to mean a lot,” Smart said. “Especially because we were right there last year, it could’ve been us. It’s always going to mean a lot. Yes, it’s one game, but it was a game that we needed to win for a multitude of reasons and once, just for us. We need to go up against a really good team, hard team that’s going to really challenge us on both ends of the floor, and we needed to work on some things. So it was a good win overall.”

The Celtics will now look to extend their winning streak on a three-game road trip starting on Saturday in Toronto and build upon their four-game lead at the top of the Eastern Conference.

“The more experience we can get, it just continues to help us,” Smart said. “We constantly get to figure out how to find ways, we get to see thing that we probably haven’t seen and we get to work on them. It’s just a different look of how teams are going to play us because they play a good style. They change it up on you, they throw things at you that you’re probably not used to and they really make you have to think about your teams and how to play and make the right play. Being able to have this win, to have this game in this moment this season is big for us.”

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