Boston Celtics great Bill Russell took to Twitter to defend Marcus Smart after his guys defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

For context, for those uninitiated: It was the fourth quarter of Game 2, with the Celtics leading and Al Horford attempting to put in a an alley-oop attempt, then it happened — J.R. Smith shoved the (then) vulnerable big in the back.

Here's the footage:

Following that play, Marcus Smart would start jawing at Smith over the foul, which only resulted in a Flagrant 1 on J.R.

Here is Smart going relatively bonkers on Smith using his big boy words:

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As it always is, however you feel about Smart going after Smith likely depends on your fan allegiance. For the legendary Bill Russell, we know where his loyalty rests.

As you can tell with the videos above, at that juncture of the game, the Celtics were starting to pull away from a Cavaliers squad that faltered mightily after the half. Some of that could have been caused by how LeBron James went out with an injury, then quickly returning but never being the same, but that's purely conjecture at this point.

After reviewing the monitor, the refs decided that only a Flagrant 1 happened from the Smith foul, not resulting in anything too crazy other than a few shots from the charity stripe and the ball. Plus, the game was pretty much over at that point.

Boston would win Game 2, taking a rather large 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals.