Marcus Smart finds himself in a familiar position after the Los Angeles Lakers dropped Game 3 to fall down 3-0 in their second-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Back in 2023 when he was a member of the Boston Celtics, Smart fell down 3-0 to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics wound up winning three straight to force a Game 7 before ultimately coming up short in their comeback attempt.
No team has ever come back from down 3-0, but Smart’s Celtics were the closest and he discussed what the Lakers need to do to make it happen.
“Energy. We gotta stay with it. Gotta be even more desperate than we are,” Smart said after Game 3. “We gotta stay together and stay composed and what we call emptying the tank, just leave it all on the court.”
The Lakers have been able to hang with the Thunder in the first halves of all three games. In the third quarters though, the Lakers appear to run out of gas while the Thunder’s depth allows them to stay fresh and rip off scoring runs that put them in control.
Smart has done an admirable job defending the soon-to-be two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander this series, but the Thunder just have too many other offensive threats to account for. And on the other side of the ball, the Lakers are clearly missing Luka Doncic, especially given all of the quality perimeter defenders the Thunder deploy.
While the odds of the Lakers coming back in this series are very slim, the goal is to win Game 4 to put at least a little pressure on the defending champions and force the series to go back to Oklahoma City.
Marcus Smart not thinking about Lakers season ending
Monday night’s Game 4 could very well be the last game of the Lakers’ season, but Smart is not thinking about that possibility when there is still a lot to play for.
“To be honest, I haven’t even thought about it,” he said. “I’m trying not to get my ass kicked out there. That’s where my focus is. I’ll worry about that after this series or whenever this playoffs is over. Right now, this series is the most important thing to me and that’s what’s on my mind.”
This has been a special Lakers season that was unfortunately derailed by injuries, but Smart is not gonna give up until the very end.
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