“If we went to the Finals instead of LeBron James in 2018, we would have beat the Warriors!”: Celtics’ Marcus Smart talks about the last time the Eastern Conference felt so wide-open

Celtics’ guard Marcus Smart appears on JJ Redick’s ‘Old Man and the Three’ show, talks about the 2017-18 season

It took quite some time, but the NBA is as balanced currently as it has ever been. There is no single team that is single-handedly dominating the NBA. There are no overwhelming title favorites. Instead, there are a handful of good teams in each conference, who would have to fight their way to the top in the playoffs.

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One such team is the Boston Celtics. They are 13-4 in their last 17 games and are on an 8-game win streak currently. They’re #2 in the league in defensive rating, and #4 overall in net rating. A reason for the same has been the role Marcus Smart has played this year, and all the past years. Smart is a crafty defender and a handy shooter. Recently, he made his way onto The Old Man and the Three podcast. There he discussed quite a few things with JJ Redick, including the 2018 playoffs.

“We would’ve beaten the Warriors, had LeBron James not stolen Game 7 from us”: Marcus Smart

Talking to Marcus Smart, JJ Redick complimented the Celtics’ for their recent run. After starting the season 18-21, the Celtics have been brilliant recently, and are just 4.5 games away from the top seed in the East.

JJ Redick then asked Smart as to the last time he felt the East was this wide-open. Smart replied and said,

“It’d have to be the year where LeBron(James) beat us in Game 7. ’18 was that for us. We definitely thought that we had a great chance. To this day, we still thought if we went to the Championship instead of LeBron and those guys, we definitely would’ve beat Golden State that year.”

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Those are some big comments coming from Marcus Smart. The 2017-18 Celtics were quite a surprising team, given all that they accomplished with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward out. They fought their way to the Eastern Conference Finals, only to be shut down by the King in 7 games. However, taking on a mammoth-like Golden State, which had Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry? They’ve got to be dreaming.