SAN FRANCISCO — It’s hard to remember what a Celtics losing streak looks like. We haven’t seen one in 54 days.

After falling at home to the Hornets, they had that forgettably unforgettable fourth quarter against the Blazers where they didn’t hit a field goal for the final seven minutes of the game. It was a return to that familiar feeling of rock bottom they had finally started to escape over the prior weeks, a grim reminder that this team forgets how to close all the time.

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That pushed them back below .500 and into 10th place for the last time this year. After beating the Warriors 110-88 to kick off their final West Coast swing of the year, the Celtics have finally passed the Bulls into fourth place and are a season-best 14 games above .500. The team on the brink of falling off a cliff two months ago has home-court advantage, thanks to a defense that over and over again proves itself to be unsolvable and impenetrable.

Boston held Golden State to 32 points in the first half, limiting Steph Curry to one basket in more than 10 minutes for the first time in a decade. He undoubtedly would have broken out of that slump to some degree had he not left the game with a foot injury after Marcus Smart dove into him chasing a loose ball. But Jordan Poole mounted the kind of absurd comeback Curry could have hoped to pull off (19 points on 7-for-8 shooting) and the Celtics still controlled this game from start to finish.

It helped that Curry wasn’t out there to help lead the comeback. He went down with that injury on one of the most bizarre plays of Smart’s career. There was a loose ball and Smart dove for it, taking Curry out from behind at the lower leg. Curry went down, Smart popped back up and went to chase Klay Thompson down. When he leaped to block Thompson’s shot, he for some reason tried to kick it out of Thompson’s hands.

The Warriors staff was upset with both of these Marcus Smart plays. First one was a roll up of Steph Curry's leg that has him currently in the locker room, second ruled a flagrant on Klay Thompson. Kerr was telling refs to review both plays, mimicking a leg chop to officials.

— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) March 17, 2022

While everyone’s eyes were glued to the replay of Smart trying to drop-kick the ball out of someone’s hands, Steve Kerr was irate over Smart diving at Curry’s legs. When Smart began to dive, there was a clear path to the ball. But by the time he was extending out toward the floor, Curry was in his way and vulnerable.

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Kerr lit into Smart, yelling and pointing as Ime Udoka held his point guard back and told him, “Don’t worry about that, let me handle that.” After the game, Udoka addressed his player getting into it with an opposing coach. In true Udoka fashion, he was all for it.

“They had some words, and our guys have the freedom to do that. If a coach is going to talk to them, they are grown men. They can talk back,” Udoka said. “And so not really worried about that, but to his credit, he kept his composure. Obviously, put up 20 and 8 and played through it. So bottom line, don’t need to get back and forth with a coach, but if you want to say your piece, I’m all for it.”

He’s never going to pull back on saying what he wants. He’s said multiple times he couldn’t care less what others think about his bluntness. His team has taken that mentality on. So, unsurprisingly, Smart’s teammate backed him up.

“We all saw the play. I didn’t think it was that dirty. That’s just what Smart does. First to the floor, you know what I mean,” Jaylen Brown said. “It’s basketball. It’s unfortunate that Steph got hurt and stuff like that. It was unintentional. But that’s what Marcus does. He is the first to the floor every time. Both teams know that. So I don’t know what the controversy is about.”

Like any one of these many incidents that have happened with Smart, it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Kerr and Smart had both calmed down after the game, following a conversation exiting the court, but they stood their ground on opposite sides of the conflict.

“I thought it was a dangerous play. I thought Marcus dove into Steph’s knee, and that’s what I’m upset about,” said Kerr. “A lot of respect for Marcus, he’s a hell of a player. I coached him in the World Cup a few summers ago. We talked after the game, we’re good. But I thought it was a dangerous play.”

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“He’s doing what any coach, any player, any person would do, and that’s backing up his guys,” Smart said. “He felt at the time, you know, a way, and we talked it out. But at the end of that conversation he told me, ‘You’re one of the guys that I wish I had on my team-type. So me and Steve have that relationship with USA Basketball, so he knows, and I’m never trying to hurt anybody. He knows that since I’ve got in this league, I’ve been sacrificing my body for the better of my team and my teammates. So I get it.”

Asked about the perception that it’s a dirty play and that he’s a dirty player, Smart said he couldn’t care less because he knows who he is.

“My teammates and players and my colleagues, they know I’m not a dirty player,” said Smart. “They know I’ma go out there and leave everything I have on the floor for my team and I’ma hustle. And that’s just what it is. Unfortunately, when you’re doing that, things happen in basketball, in any sport, anything, and an injury happens. That’s just what it is. I’m sure I’m gonna get called dirty.”

The thing is, dirty doesn’t have to come from intent. It’s entirely valid for Smart to say his reckless abandon is simply that he never holds back in his desire to win. But he does have a responsibility to those around him. It’s a tough call whether he should have determined Curry was going to be in his way, or whether it doesn’t matter because that ball was fair game and anyone thinking they didn’t have to dive for it like a fumble on the goal line was kidding themselves.

Smart initially defended himself by alleging Draymond Green gave Grant Williams whiplash on an earlier play when they went for a loose ball. Smart was implying that he’s not alone in this and that the other great undersized defenders in the game have to play a similar way. It seemed like it could have been a bit of a cop-out until Green actually came to defend Smart — to a degree — an hour later when he said he couldn’t call it a dirty play but just “unnecessary.”

On the play a moment later, when Smart drop-kicked Thompson flying through the air, Green felt like he was looking in the mirror.

“I was right there, I saw the kick. But shit happens,” Green said. “I’ve kicked somebody before, so it is what it is.”

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That’s the beauty of this game. You’ve got the two league leaders in scrappiness battling it out on the defensive end, mucking things up all night. This was a painful game to watch, a cacophony of bricks laid sequentially as if they were building a house together. This night was a Habitat for Humanity infomercial.

But just like in this game, the Celtics defense was so damn good that they just pushed through their offensive mediocrity like it was nothing. It’s the story of their season, with the offense finally catching up to their unquestionably elite defense to make losing streaks a thing of the past.

“They started off pretty shitty,” Green said. “The way they turned their season around, you really gotta give those guys credit.”

(Photo of Marcus Smart going for the ball between Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)