Smart apologizes for outburst in loss to Wizards

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart has taken the high road, apologizing for his meltdown in Tuesday night's defeat to the Washington Wizards.

"To my coaching staff and my teammates and the Celtics organization - I apologize for my actions tonight," Smart said in a Twitter statement. "In hating to lose, my actions were childish and unprofessional and never under any circumstances do I have the right to act that way and for that I sincerely apologized. I'm a role model to kids and a player for Coach. I'm sorry."

After getting subbed out near the end of the fourth quarter, Smart erupted on the sidelines, getting into it with multiple assistant coaches during a timeout.

Both sides downplayed the situation following the contest.

"Just coaches and players, they're real passionate about the game and hate losing and having different opinions about certain things in the game," Smart told ESPN's Chris Forsberg. "Of course, I wanted to go back in. Just like everybody else, to play it out and give it everything they had and leave it on the court. We had different opinions on that."

Head coach Brad Stevens added: "So he just wanted to go back in. And he had played 12 (consecutive) minutes or whatever, so he wasn't going to go back in."

The Celtics' recent struggles likely played a part in Smart's frustrations, as Boston has now dropped its last three contests.