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Celtics' Smart defends shoving Embiid: 'I'm going to protect myself'

Rocky Widner / National Basketball Association / Getty

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart isn't apologizing for his shove of Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid on Wednesday night.

"I'll do it over again," Smart said Friday, according to Mass Live's John Karalis. "I'm going to protect myself at all times, especially if I don't feel like I'm being protected out there like everybody else is. If you don't want to clean it up, I'll clean it up myself."

Smart was ejected at the 7:06 mark of the third quarter and subsequently fined $50,000 on Thursday. That price was a result of Smart's past indiscretions, as this latest fine is his third of the campaign.

The 25-year-old said the shove was in response to what he perceived as a missed offensive foul call.

"The elbow to the chest, I wasn't too worried about that," Smart said. "But then the illegal screen from Joel the very next play - I thought it was just really obvious that it was an illegal screen that should have been called, and I thought it should have been cleaned up.

"If you call that screen, you make the right call and you don't just let an offensive player just really does what he want, and allow the defender to protect himself and protect his space as well none of that ever happens. So with the illegal elbow, I don't know if you guys watched it you could even see Joel lean in with the elbow, you can see Joel walk off like he didn't even do anything. I don't know what the call was. So after that I waited for the call, it didn't happen, and I just got up and I pushed him."

The Celtics went on to lose 118-115, and while Smart defended his actions, he feels bad for hindering his team's chances of winning.

"I definitely do," Smart said. "I definitely think I hurt my team and my team expressed to me how much they were disappointed in me and that I did with that. Especially getting into the playoffs, the last thing we need is another body down, and I gotta be smarter next time."

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