Awards season is officially underway in the NBA and we have our first winner. Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics was named the league's Defensive Player of the Year Monday, becoming the first guard since Gary Payton in 1995-96 to win the award. The second-place finisher in award voting was the Phoenix Suns' own, Mikal Bridges.

Bridges finished with 202 total points to Smart's 257, marking a relatively close race. Smart earned 37 first-place votes while Bridges had 22.

Shortly after the award's announcement, Mikal Bridges took to twitter to congratulate Marcus Smart on the “much deserved” recognition.

“Congrats to Marcus Smart fr,” the Suns youngster wrote on Twitter. “Happy they start realizing it aint easy guarding mfs on the island every night ! Very much deserved … I appreciate everybody that was rockin wit me lol we’ll be ok its a blessing to even be apart of the convo.”

Just hours before the announcement, Duane Rankin of the Arizona Republic asked Bridges what it meant to him to be considered a finalist for the award.

“It's a blessing,” he said following practice Monday. “None of it would have happened without my four teammates behind me so that's all I really care about. I appreciate my guys. They help me have the confidence to guard up there anyway. If it wasn't them I wouldn't even be a part of it.”

Bridges proved the legitimacy of his candidacy for Defensive Player of the Year Sunday night. In Game 1 against the New Orleans Pelicans, the visitors shot just 2-of-16 with Bridges as primary defender. CJ McCollum was 0-for-9 against Bridges. Not bad for the DPOY runner-up.