Marcus Smart and Kyrie Irving were only teammates for two seasons, but their tenure together was filled with a plethora of emotional moments. Especially, with two very emotional players in Marcus Smart and Kyrie Irving.
During an episode of Tidal’s Run Your Race Podcast, Marcus Smart revealed an emotional message he had told Kyrie Irving when the two were teammates on the Boston Celtics. Smart openly told Irving that the two would end up fighting, but that it’ll ultimately make each other better.
“But I remember I sat him down one time. I was like, ‘Listen, bro, I just want to see how you’re doing. I know you got a lot going on, and people probably don’t ask you as much as how you’re doing.’ I just told him, ‘For me to be the best defender that I’m gonna be, bro, I’m going to guard you. It’s going to be every day. I don’t care. We’re going to fight, we’re going to argue, but at the end of the day, it’s going to make me better,” Smart said.
Despite the brash warning that Marcus Smart sent to Kyrie Irving, he made sure to let the point guard know that it’s all coming out of a place of love.
“At the end of the day, I know it’s all love when I step on that court, that’s what it is. Vice versa, I know for you, as you being the player that you are offensively, you need somebody like me on that other side that’s going to push you,” Smart said. “So you’re going to see me every day, and when you get to the game, you’re going to be like, ‘This is easy.” And once we had that, you know what I’m saying, it was… you could kind of see the chemistry that we started to build.”
Kyrie Irving never reached the ultimate goal of winning an NBA Championship with Marcus Smart and the Boston Celtics, but it’s clear that their two seasons together created a very special bond.
