The Boston Celtics are off to a surprisingly super slow start, as they are 3-3 to start the season. However, this start was to be expected, according to head coach Brad Stevens. Jay King of The Athletic captured Stevens thoughts on the Celtics' performance so far in this tweet:
Brad Stevens said the Celtics choppy start is “exactly what I thought it would be like. … I think being in it, this was pretty predictable. And it’s going to continue to be challenging.”
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) January 2, 2021
The Celtics, who lost to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals last year in the bubble, proved to the NBA that they were a team hungry for the NBA championship. A group of young guys led by Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart, and Kemba Walker, the Celtics fought their way to the third seed with an incredible 48-24 record.
This season is proving to be an entirely different story. Steven saw the Celtics having to overcome many challenges in order to get to the exact spot they were last season. What exactly are these challenges? Guard Marcus Smart had some insight on the matter, via Abigail Adams of NESN:
“We didn’t expect it to be this bad, but we definitely expected to have some ups and downs,” Smart said. “A lot of curveballs thrown our way. A lot of learning curves. A lot of young guys. A lot of new guys. But it’s still not an excuse. A lot of the rest of us have been here for a longer period of time. We know the system. We know what Brad wants, and we have to go out there and do it.”
The season is still young and the Celtics have plenty of time to turn things around. The NBA has seen the team the Celtics can be, and it is only a matter of time until they begin to function as a unit once again.
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