Following the Lakers’ 110-101 win over the lowly Pelicans on Tuesday — an odd game in which the latter actually held a lead with around five minutes left in the fourth quarter — head coach JJ Redick was asked about the trust he had in veteran guard Marcus Smart. Smart didn’t shoot the ball particularly well — he scored 10 points on nine shots — but he recorded 4 steals, 3 blocks and finished the evening as a +13, the highest mark of any starter on either team.
(According to Stathead, only four other guards have logged at least seven “stocks” in a game this season: Cade Cunningham, Jalen Suggs, Derrick White and Russell Westbrook.)
(Jonathan Castro/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
“Smart has starred in his role for what we need consistently from him throughout the year,” Redick told reporters. “He’s played great basketball for the last five or six weeks and that starts on the defensive end. He’s been tremendous for us defensively. There were a couple points where you felt the energy of the group start to wane and he makes a big play — he gave us life tonight.”
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Redick’s praise of Smart, wrapped in the context of just how the Lakers have struggled to establish a defensive identity this season, shouldn’t go unnoticed. There has been a strong emphasis on embracing physicality since training camp, but there is irony in the fact that their largest source of physicality is their smallest player on the floor at most times. It’s also notable that the Lakers coach went out of his way to acknowledge Smart’s contributions at a time when the on-court vibes might not be so great.
It’s not common for an undersized defender like Smart, with a ton of mileage on his legs — and the litany of injuries he’s amassed in his 12-year career — to be such an impactful player, but his re-insertion into the starting lineup in place of Rui Hachimura has been an equalizer. If you argue that 80% of the Lakers’ starting five is offensively inclined (LeBron James is an all-time great defender, but he’s also 41), Smart is the antithesis to that.
He’s mastered the art of the irritant: strong enough to withstand physicality from larger forwards and bigs; quick enough to keep pace with other guards; and has the necessary wingspan to fill in the gaps and disrupt. Smart is the gum that doesn’t come off your shoe, the piece of popcorn you just can’t seem to get out of your teeth. Beginning, middle or ending of a possession.
“Definitely instincts,” Smart said to the media postgame about defending Zion Williamson. “That’s what I do, though. My mind works in that way. My team trusts me to make the play and my instincts. Willing to put your body there, take a charge, take an elbow to the face, box him out, go vertical — is something you have to be willing to do. And not everybody’s willing to do it, and that’s the difference in the game sometimes.”
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And for the analytical diehards, take your pick! Dunks and Threes has Smart as a 95th percentile defender in estimated plus-minus. Cleaning the Glass places his on/off defensive impact in the 94th percentile, with the Lakers a +7.3 points per 100 possessions in his minutes. DARKO defensive plus-minus, a metric that measures how much a player should impact opponent scoring per 100 possessions, places him in the 83rd. D-LEBRON, which combines a number of real-time factors including lineups and sample sizes, has him in the 80th.
What’s even more intriguing, when you dive into Smart’s film, is that if you ever find yourself thinking, “Hmm, he sure looks like his old self,” you’re not far off. Smart won Defensive Player of the Year as a Celtic back in 2022 under Ime Udoka, the team that was two games away from winning a title. But take a look at these numbers side-by-side, all courtesy of Databallr:
|
2025-26 |
2021-22 |
|
|
Defensive Adjusted Plus-Minus |
+1.7, 95th percentile |
+1.1, 93rd percentile |
|
Defensive True Shooting |
+0.1, 76th percentile |
+0.1, 79th percentile |
|
Defensive Turnover Factor |
+1.1, 97th percentile |
+1.1, 98th percentile |
|
Stop Percentage |
3.6, 90th percentile |
3.8, 96th percentile |
|
Deflections Per Game |
4.8, 83rd percentile |
4.4, 86th percentile |
Smart’s defensive presence — as his overall importance to the Lakers’ two-way scheme as a floor spacer and connective tissue — makes him a true X-factor for Los Angeles with less than 20 games to go until the end of the regular season.
Redick has found success with his three-guard lineup, pairing Smart with Austin Reaves and Luka Dončić to give them a true Pokemon trio, with each player possessing different strengths and weaknesses, but working in tandem to yield positive results. Los Angeles, which is barely treading net-rating water this season, is an eye-popping +22.9 in 599 possessions when all three share the floor, with offensive and defensive ratings that would rank best in the league.
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At 37-24 with just 1.5 games separating them from third in the West and a tough schedule the rest of the way, the reliance on Smart for a team that ranks 21st in defensive efficiency (16th since Jan. 1) will be immense.
Redick mainly deploys Smart on higher-usage players and spends most of his time defending against star talents. There’s anything but a shortage of that out West. Keeping him healthy — he’s played in 51 games, the most in three seasons — is imperative for any postseason dreams the Lakers have, no matter how lofty they are.