The NBA opener almost got violent.
Early in the third quarter of the Celtics-76ers matchup on Tuesday, Joel Embiid and Marcus Smart got tied up going for a rebound. Smart’s arm got wedged between Embiid’s arm and body before the 76ers big man twisted his frame to free himself.
Smart, though, felt Embiid was attempting something sinister and resisted the urge to retaliate.
“Went for the rebound, basketball play. Went for the steal, basketball play,” Smart said. “Referee blows his whistle, calls a foul, I stop play, my arm’s still in there and he tries to break it. I’m the only one that gets a tech, everybody saw it, I don’t have to keep talking about it. If I did that I’d probably get ejected, suspended…
“But the fact that I am the only one that got something out of that, especially the defending DPOY (Defensive Player of the Year) that’s how he gets treated? It’s tough, but it’s maturity. I could have cracked his head open, but I didn’t. That’s the maturity we have and we move on from it. It its what it is.”
Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid during the 76ers-Celtics opener on Oct. 18, 2022. Getty ImagesSmart and the Celtics pulled away in the second half for a 126-117 victory over their Eastern Conference rival on the opening night of the season.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Embiid told reporters of the play. “They had called a foul on him. I walked away and next thing I know, my foot is getting caught up and slipped. And next thing, Jaylen [Brown] is on top of me. It’s basketball. Emotions … rivalry, Boston-Philly, a lot of intensity. So it’s all good.”
Jaylen Brown came to Smart’s defense, standing over Embiid, who was on the floor after the tie up.
“I’ve seen the play and I thought the duration of the game, Embiid was getting away with a lot of unnecessary pushing and shoving,” Brown said. “Just being a big guy, that’s what he does, but he was throwing his weight around a little bit. And I had said something before that moment, but they kind of let it go, brushed it off.
“In that play, it seemed like he was trying to hurt Smart in a sense. Instincts just came right over. It ended up being nothing, ended up being a play on. Nobody got hurt. We just ended up finishing the game, playing some good basketball. But we’ve got each other’s backs out there and we’re not taking no mess this year.”
It was Boston’s first game under interim head coach Joe Mazzulla after the defending Eastern Conference champions suspended Ime Udoka for the season for an inappropriate relationship with a team employee.
