There's a lot of beauty in the game of basketball. The way that the ball goes through the hoop barely grazing the net on a perfect 3-point shot. The way that players like Robert Williams can seemingly stop mid-air to convert dunks. The way that Jayson Tatum can dribble around the court and sink a shot with ease.
But then there are the head-scratching plays like the one Marcus Smart made on Monday night against the New Orleans Pelicans.
To set the stage, Payton Pritchard had just made a great hustle play to force a jump ball against Brandon Ingram. With 0.3 seconds left on the shot clock for the Pelicans, possession was going to go to Boston one way or another regardless of what happened on the jump ball.
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Well, the C's did get possession. But Smart didn't exactly make the most of his opportunity.
Here's a look at the play via the Celtics on NBC Sports Boston Twitter account.
What a disaster.
It appears Smart thought that once the ball was touched, the shot clock would start running, but off a jump ball, the shot clock doesn't start until a team has possession. So, when the Celtics possessed the ball, the clock reset to 24.
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And then... yeah.
That may go down as one of the more ... interesting plays of Smart's career. It certainly didn't help the C's, as Ingram hit a 3-pointer on the other end after Smart's missed shot. That extended New Orleans' lead at the time to seven points.