Earlier this month, Boston Celtics defender Marcus Smart made history by becoming the first guard since Gary Peyton in 1996 to be named Defender of the Year. Now Smart has followed suit with his third appearance in the NBA’s first team for all defenses.
On Friday, before game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks, the league finally announced all the defensive teams.
Smart in the first team was joined by Michal Bridges of the Phoenix Suns and Rudy Gobert of Utah Jazz, who finished second and third in the Defender of the Year voting, respectively. The first team was completed by Milwaukee Bucks star Janice Adetokunmpo and Memphis Grizzlies big man Jaren Jackson Jr.
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The second team was highlighted by the best defender of the year for 2017, Draymond Green, who was the selection for all defenders for the seventh time in his career. Also on the second team: Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat, Robert Williams III of the Boston Celtics, Jru Holliday of the Milwaukee Bucks and Matisse Tibul of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Here are the full voting results:
Smart narrowly failed to be a unanimous selection because one of the 100 voters left him completely out of the ballot. Another interesting note is how close was the race between Jackson and Adebayo for one of the places ahead in the first team. Adebayo actually had two more votes for the first team, but Jackson received five more votes for the second team, which was enough to secure a place for the first team with one point.
There were 24 other players who received at least one vote. Most importantly, Fred VanVleit did not qualify for any team, although he finished with more points (41) than Draymond Green (34). Unfortunately for VanVleet, the teams are determined by position and he had no more points than any of the top four guards.
Another interesting note is that Jason Tatum, Jaylan Brown, Al Horford and Derrick White were among the winners, which in combination with Smart and Williams meant that the Celtics had six different players receiving votes. When you have players who come off the bench and get All-Defensive votes, you know you have good defense.
One last item worth mentioning is that there were three rookies in the vote category: Evan Mobley of the Cleveland Cavaliers (13 points), Herbert Jones of the New Orleans Pelicans (10) and Scotty Barnes of the Toronto Raptors. 2). It is rare to see new recruits have a big impact on the defensive end, but there were three in this class.
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