Getty Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart
After last season’s playoff run, the Boston Celtics were expected to be back to the Eastern Conference Finals as they were planning to get two of their injured superstars back to the court. And once the Cleveland Cavaliers were going to be without LeBron James, the Eastern Conference became wide open, and the Celtics were favored.
As we are 18 games into the 2018 season now, the Celtics are more pretender, than a contender. The Celtics took an upsetting loss to the New York Knicks at home on Wednesday night, which dropped their record to 9-9 on the season, leaving them 5.5 games back from first place. A slow start could’ve been expected, but nobody could guess that the Celtics would still be struggling at this point in the season.
Boston’s locker room is not happy at all. Celtics head coach Brad Stevens was forced to make some changes that nobody expected him to make. For instance, Gordon Hayward, who was brought here from Utah as he was a star with the Jazz was supposed to add a ton of star power to the Celtics’ squad. Unfortunately, Hayward hasn’t figured out how to gel with the Celtics, forcing Stevens to send him to the bench.
Hayward’s struggles are far from the only reason why the Celtics are underperforming, but it’s just a relevant example of how/why the Celtics are not as good as they were last season. If you ask Celtics’ guard Marcus Smart about what’s going on with the Celtics, he definitely won’t sugarcoat the situation. Smart sees some guys wanting it more than others, and he sees the guys that just don’t want it at all.
Smart Calls It How He Sees It
“It’s the same old song,” he said in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. “You know, it gets annoying. I don’t even know what to say at this point. You’ve already done heard it. I’m tired of talking about it. I don’t know.”
“It’s not everybody. You’ve got guys out there that are playing and playing hard. That’s some, but we don’t have all five guys at the same time. So teams are going to continue to whup us. We’ve got to stop sugarcoating things. That’s the problem. We’ve got to stop sugarcoating it. We’ve just got to call it what it is. We’re playing like punks; that’s just what it is.”
Smart not only blames the motivational factor for what is currently going on, but he also pointed out everybody’s lack of defense as well. As the Celtics are now on a three-game losing streak, they have let up 117 points in two, of the last three games. And since their offense isn’t exactly playing like a high-powered scoring team, then their lack of defense on a nightly basis is definitely becoming a huge factor that is killing Boston.
The good news for Smart and the rest of the Celtics is that they have plenty of time left in the season to turn things around. Although it won’t be easy as the Eastern Conference has some surprise contenders this season, Boston definitely has the weapons to go on a run to get themselves back into good shape.