The NBA announced on Monday that the Boston Celtics guard, Marcus Smart, is the defensive player of the year.

This is the first price of its kind for Smart. He is the first guard to win this award after Gary Peyton in the 1995-1996 season when he played for Seattle.

Smart won 257 points on the ballot, including 37 votes for first place, to finish at the top. Opponents Mikal Bridges (Phoenix) and Rudy Gobert (Utah) received 22 and 12 votes in the first place, respectively.

Smart finished the season in seventh place in steals per game (1.68). His team led the NBA in points he conceded per night, with 104.5.

He is the second player in Celtics history to be crowned Defensive Player of the Year, after Kevin Garnett in 2007-08.

Gobert, already a three-time winner of this trophy in 2018, 2019 and 2021, fails to join Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace in the ranks of the most awarded in history.