The NBA schedule-makers, anticipation-building rascals that they are, are going to make you wait.
The Memphis Grizzlies will not visit TD Garden in the coming season until Feb. 4, the 49th game of the full 82 on Thursday’s freshly-revealed 2023-24 Celtics schedule.
You know what that means? The highly-anticipated Celtics season will be heading toward the backstretch before you can welcome Marcus Smart back to his old home and tell him — presumably in the form of a raucous, prolonged, and heartfelt standing ovation — how you feel.
The chance to welcome back Smart — the polarizing, passionate, hustling, dedicated, clever, erratic, always-caring-but-sometimes-misguided heartbeat of this era of Celtics before his stunning trade to the Grizzlies in June — was clearly priority No.