Celtics' Marcus Smart Says 'Everything' Went Wrong in Game 5 Loss to 76ers
The Boston Celtics got played off the floor in a Game 5 115-103 loss against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night, with TD Garden fans even booing the home team and fleeing for the exits early.
Celtics guard Marcus Smart told reporters that "everything" went wrong for the team following the pivotal loss that saw the Sixers take a 3-2 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series.
"The energy wasn't right," he added. "It could have been better, way better. We know that, we understand that. ... If you're not ready to come out, at any given moment, this can happen. So you tip your hat off and move on to the next one."
When Smart (14 points, four assists) said nothing went right, he wasn't joking. While Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined for 60 points, key role players like Al Horford (no points, 0-of-7 from three), Derrick White (seven points) and Malcolm Brogdon (seven points) didn't offer much.
The Celtics were awful from three in general, shooting 12-of-38 from beyond the arc, a figure that the bench players made look a bit more palatable with a few threes in garbage time. The Sixers beat the Celtics on the glass, out-rebounding them 49-36.
And every time the Celtics made a push, either Joel Embiid (33 points, seven boards) or Tyrese Maxey (30 points, 6-of-12 from three) seemed to come up with a clutch bucket.
The result is that the Sixers are just one win away from the Eastern Conference Finals, with a chance to end things in Philadelphia on Thursday night.
But this Celtics group is battled-tested, having reached the NBA Finals last year and the conference finals in the 2019-20 season, so Smart believes Boston can recover and win a tough game on the road.
"It's easy. We've been there before. It's one game at a time," he told reporters. "So you know they're feeling good. We got to go into a hostile environment and we got to go take it. It's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be a dogfight."
If the Celtics play like they did on Tuesday night, however, it's going to be an early vacation for Smart and his teammates.
