Boston Celtics: 3 regular season goals for Marcus Morris in 2018-19
By Ryan Feyre
2. Continue to be a hype man
One of my favorite moments of the 2017-18 Boston Celtics team was in Game 2 during the Eastern Conference Finals, when Morris yelled into Tristan Thompson’s face after a huge and-one in the third quarter. The Cavaliers were winning for most of the game at that point, leading by as much as 11 until Morris and company went on huge run after huge run, and came out with their own 13-point win.
Thompson probably tried messing with Marcus Morris throughout the contest, so having something like that happen was priceless. That moment officially turned the game into the Celtics’ favor, and they never looked back from there.
The same type of thing happened in Game 5, where Morris deflected a lob pass to Larry Nance Jr in the second half. After the great defensive play, Morris stared down Nance and said something (probably vulgar). Nance took offense to it and shoved Thompson, but that’s besides the point. Morris caused Cleveland’s center to show frustration, which only added to another 13-point finish for Boston.
Sure, sometimes the forward may need to control his emotions, but his style of play definitely rubs off not he younger players and motivates them to have the same passion as him. We saw that passion come out in Game 7 of the same series where Jayson Tatum dunked on LeBron, and went right up in his grill.
Somehow I feel like Morris had something to do with that moment, especially since Tatum is usually pretty level-headed.
Either way, Marcus Morris definitely has his teammates’ back, and uses emotion to impact any game. Hopefully that carries into the following years.