Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Boston Celtics will be without one of their key starters in Marcus Smart, with the gritty guard out for the first two rounds of the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Smart, who suffered a torn oblique on his left side, started 60 games for the Celtics this season.
The team has not confirmed the news yet, but this is certainly a huge blow for a team looking to make a deep run into the postseason. Neither Celtics head coach Brad Stevens nor Celtics president and general manager Danny Ainge predicted Smart’s injury to be a long-term issue.
With Smart out, it’ll be interesting to see how Boston fills the void.
Interestingly, the Celtics signed guard Jonathan Gibson on Tuesday — a player who is to offense what Smart is to defense.
In any case, the message for Boston will now be, “next man up.”
This season, Smart averaged 8.9 points, 4 assists, 2.9 rebounds and a career-high 1.8 steals per game. He shot 42.2 percent from the field and career-high 36.4 percent from three.
*All stats gathered from Basketball Reference.
