NBA Hoops

Celtics president, coach, and Marcus Smart talk Smart’s quad injury

Boston falls to Milwaukee 101 – 89 in Game 1

One of the biggest question marks looming over the next game of the East semis series between the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks is whether injured Celtics point guard Marcus Smart will have healed enough to play in Boston’s road tilt with the Bucks on Saturday night.

The Oklahoma State product exited the Celtics’ Game 1 loss with both a shoulder stinger and a quad bruise, the latter of which in particular kept Smart out of the second installment of the second-round series. Thus, the veteran guard’s availability for Game 3 was a popular topic on Thursday, starting with team president Brad Stevens being asked about it during his weekly appearance on the WEEI “Toucher and Rich” radio show.

“Marcus was in the gym yesterday, on an off day for the rest of our team, and got in some work in the weight room and looked like he (was) a little bit better (than he had) been,” suggested Stevens.

“That was the thing,” explained the Celtics president.  “He had enough swelling in his quad that he didn’t have the ideal ability to really get low and bend.”

“That knee looked like he was doing a little bit better yesterday. I don’t know what he’s going to be cleared to do in practice today, but we’ll see as the days go on — we’re hopeful but not certain.”

This perspective was for the most part echoed by Boston head coach Ime Udoka after the team’s practice on Thursday, who said Smart is “getting better. He’s getting some work in right now.”

“We’ll know more tomorrow based on how he feels today, but he looks better today than he did just moving around, and walking around the last few days when he couldn’t go and so we’ll know more tomorrow.”

“I don’t think he’s restricted in every movement,” added the Celtics coach.

“Some side to side, going through (and) getting shots up and all that. But it looks like…

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