Celtics' Smart expects ugly Game 7: 'Ready for a dogfight'

Forced back to Boston after LeBron James' heroics in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, Celtics guard Marcus Smart is ready for a showdown in Sunday's Game 7.

So much so that combat analogies were flowing freely Friday.

"It's not going to be pretty," Smart said, according to ESPN's Chris Forsberg. "You got to be able to get down and get dirty. You can't go out and try to look pretty. You have to be ready for a dogfight. We got to be ready to come up with our nose bloodied, we got to be ready to come out with our mouth bloodied, we have to come out ready to fight."

Smart is arguably the most fiery player on a scrappy Celtics squad, and he's made his usual mark on the series. While hovering around his sub-38 career field-goal percentage, he's averaging almost two steals in six games while clamping down defensively on bigger forwards like Tristan Thompson.

In the fourth quarter Friday, he even rejected James at the rim, something Smart had some fun with afterward, believing he's overlooked as one of the NBA's best defensive players.

"And that's from a not-top-five defender y'all," he said, per MassLive's Tom Westerholm.