Marcus Smart is a good basketball player and a great defender. But sometimes, he makes the silliest plays, and this offensive goaltend was one of them.
Marcus Smart flopped his way into an offensive goaltend
There’s really no good way to explain this.
The Celtics were on the verge of cutting a 17-point deficit down to three when Kyrie Irving sliced through the Warriors’ defense in transition and got to the rim for an easy layup — or so we thought.
Smart tapped the ball before it came out of the net and knocked it back out.
FAM. That’s an offensive goaltend. The basket didn’t count.
The basket was counted initially but upon further review and a bit of lobbying by the Warriors, the officials ruled it out. That was a weird play — mostly because it didn’t need to happen. It’s all because of a flop from Smart that the basket didn’t count.
The ball was clearly going to roll in, and it wasn’t on it’s way out. Al Horford tapped Smart in the back and he flailed while jumping in the air. That’s when he accidentally knocked the ball out of the basket.
We’ve seen this before, too. Tyson Chandler did it with the Knicks a while back in a close game against the Magic.
But Chandler did it to himself accidentally while pulling up on the rim. Smart wasn’t even really involved in the play here.
Hopefully, Smart has learned his lesson. It’s almost 2018 — we have to stop flopping.
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