Marcus Smart was interviewed following Celtics practice on Thursday. Over the past few days, comments from Kyrie Irving on racism in Boston and implied fans were yelling racial slurs at players. Smart acknowledged the problem and his experiences of those comments from the crowd. When asked if the Celtics have discussed these issues before, Smart said “Yeah we discuss them...our fanbase and our crowd to be very respectful of all players...we’re out there to perform, and to entertain for the crowd. We just want it to be respectful on both ends. We were kind of seeing around the league now...a couple other incidents involving fans and the crowd. So we don’t want our crowd to be like that, we want everybody to be respected on and off the court.”
When asked about hearing things yelled at opposing players, Smart opened up. “I’ve heard a couple of them. It’s kind of sad and sickening because even though it’s an opposing team, we have guys on your home team that you’re saying these racial slurs and you’re expecting us to go out there and play for you.”
On matching the physical play brought by the Nets, Smart said “Some guys naturally have that, and some guys don’t. But unfortunately, you have to bring it. Eventually, you're going to get tired of it, and you’re gonna have to respond. At this point, you gotta protect yourself, you gotta protect your teammates...if the game’s gonna allow the other team to do it to us, you gotta be able to do it back regardless of what the consequence is because obviously consequences don’t matter because they get to do it and we don’t. So, at this moment, forget consequences, you gotta go out there and protect yourself..if we gotta get in some faces, we gotta get in some faces...we’re all grown men, we’re gonna fight back, and nobody’s gonna punk us like that.”
Referencing Evan Fournier’s barking at Kevin Durant, Smart said “Evan did the right thing, and I expect that from everybody else on the team.”