Marcus Smart, Yes, That Marcus Smart, Complained About Joel Embiid Flailing to Get Calls

The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Boston Celtics, 117-109, on Wednesday night with Joel Embiid scoring 42 points on 19 field goal attempts in 33 minutes. Embiid took 21 free throws. The entire Celtics team took 20. Unsurprisingly, the Celtics had an issue with this. Surprisingly, it was Marcus Smart who addressed it.

"It's tough. It is tough. Especially when we've got our hands up a lot of the times, and he flails and gets the call, and then down on the other end we've got our guys attacking the rim, getting a lot of contact, and we're just not getting the whistle. It's tough to play like that. It's tough."

- Marcus Smart

I'm sure most people will agree with Smart that it is tough when someone flails and gets calls. Where the disagreement lies is that it's Smart complaining about this. Marcus Smart, who is possibly the worst flopping offender in the entire league right now. A perennial flop king.

Smart actually addressed this on an episode of The Jump in the summer of 2019. Via NBC Sports:

"I flop on defense, your favorite player flops on offense. That’s the only difference. Especially in a game where the offense has nothing but the advantage, the defense has to do something to get the advantage back."

- Marcus Smart

This is, of course, complete bullsh-t. Just picking the most recent compilation of Smart's flops you can see multiple offensive flops featured.

Marcus Smart complaining about someone else drawing calls by "flailing" is just verbal flopping. Even if he has admitted to flopping in the past, he must continue to live the lie that other players are the bad actors and he and his teammates are the ones absorbing the actual contact. You know, like this play in the 4th when Daniel Theis threw himself down and tried to convince officials Joel Embiid hit him in the face.

Marcus Smart remains a basketball menace and a person who cannot be taken seriously when talking about flopping.