Celtics news: Marcus Smart gets honest on Boston's NBA Finals run

Celtics guard Marcus Smart wants the team to never forget the mistakes they made in the NBA Finals and learn from it instead.

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart has already accepted their defeat in the NBA Finals, though he certainly wants the team to never forget the mistakes they made and learn from it instead.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday during his Young Game Changers basketball clinic, Smart opened up about his regrets about their NBA playoffs run that saw them go just two wins away from the Larry O'Brien trophy.

The reigning Defensive Player of the Year wished they could have been healthier during the playoffs. But more than than, he is still thinking about their turnover woes in the NBA Finals and how it basically doomed them.

“For me, I wish Rob (Williams) didn’t tear his meniscus. I wish I didn’t mess my ankle up to where I’m struggling to play and had to put an ankle brace on. I wish we didn’t run out of gas,” Smart said, per Boston Herald.

“Obviously those series we went through to get to the Finals were so brutal, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. You hate to find your lessons in defeat, but sometimes you have to see rain before a rainbow. But think things I lay in bed thinking about are our execution. We had so many damn turnovers, man, it was ridiculous. Unfortunately that’s what we’d been doing the last couple of series. We flirted with it and it finally backfired and it bit us in our butts.”

A lot of people expected the Celtics to win. After all, they have the best defense in the NBA alongside two of the most promising offensive talents in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Unfortunately, the Warriors' experience proved to be a major factor as Boston collapsed in the threat of Stephen Curry, Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.

Of course as Marcus Smart mentioned, the turnovers problem of the team played a huge role in their huge downfall as well. In the closeout Game 6, they committed 22 turnovers. Jayson Tatum, meanwhile, gave up the ball 100 times during the whole postseason.

The experience should definitely help the Celtics as they try to get the job done come 2021-22. For now, they can only work and hope to address the problems that prevented them from taking banner no. 18 for Boston.