Marcus Smart leaves 76ers game with sprained right ankle

Per the team, Marcus Smart will not return to tonight’s game in Philadelphia because of a sprained right ankle. The Celtics starting point guard was driving hard against a retreating Joel Embiid in the second quarter when he stepped on Embiid’s foot.

Smart stayed in the game to shoot two free throws, but was immediately subbed out.

Over the last fifteen games, Smart has tapered down his shot selection and become more of a playmaker for the Celtics. He was averaging 12.5 points on 47.4% shooting with four rebounds and six assists. More so, he’s put together another Defensive Player of the Year campaign and lead Boston to the second best defense in the league with a 104.4 defensive rating.

After the second game of a back-to-back at home at TD Garden tomorrow night, the Celtics will be off for over a week for the league’s All-Star Game festivities and will resume their regular season schedule in Brooklyn next Thursday.

After the game, Udoka provided an update on Smart’s ankle, saying, “he rolled his ankle pretty bad, stepped on Joel’s foot going up. He’s limping noticeably, so we’ll check him out tonight and tomorrow and see how he feels, but it didn’t look great how he’s walking out. We’ll see.”