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"We are not as good as those announced at the moment. At least we know it a week.
Coach Brad Stevens is not happy with what he has seen from his team.
"I could not be more impressed after our first three games of exhibition games," he said after Boston's 102-95 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night.
Against the less-Cavs LeBron James, the Celtics seemed far away from a team ready to do a championship race. In attack, they shot 16.1% over a distance of three points. In defense, they gave up 32 points in the first quarter and committed 30 fouls. Kyrie Irving, the playmaker, did not play Tuesday because of the rest and the last starters were limited to one minute – but Stevens knows that this team has yet to make corrections to achieve what it is capable of.
"No luck, we dominate talent alone," he said. "No team does that. You must play together. You have to play in the right direction. If you have very good players and they do it all, then you can have a special year. "
The defense was an important point for the Celtics, who finished the regular season with the league's best defensive score (101.5), but the run was disappointing with a win and two losses in the friendly.
"We do things we do not usually do on the defensive side," said goalkeeper Marcus Smart. "We are lazy. The guys were turning to the guys instead of keeping their own guy. We want someone else to do the work for us, and it's just not us. Rightly, Brad was not happy and he let it know.
Boston's opponents averaged 37.6 pre-season free throws per game, compared with an average of 21.3 attempts in the regular season. Keeping without clogging is just one of the many elements – others include abandoning 'wide open layups, three large open ones, [and] very open plans "- on the list of areas to improve Stevens.
"We have to play better," he said. "Overall, the first week was not effective. … I obviously think we have done a lot of work until now. It has not been translated, so you have to teach it better. "
Forward Jaylen Brown, who scored 10 points on five out of nine shots, said Stevens' critics were "fair".
"It's early though," Brown said. "It's not over, but it's a fair assessment. At the same time, do not jump from boat. Let's stay locked up and stay on course. "
Brown said he was not panicking, but he acknowledged that the team had a lot of work to do to "deliver results at the height of expectation" [they] The 21-year-old said he spoke to his teammates because "building off-the-ground relationships helps them to bring them to the ground," and expressed optimism about the future.
"We are still trying to find solutions," Brown said. "We have to find a rhythm, a chemistry with this first unit. There is a lot of talent in this first unit and no one wants to step on their feet, but at the same time, we do not help ourselves to perform. We will understand it. I do not doubt that we will get by. Just need to take a deep breath, smile and keep getting better each day. "
Smart, who scored 15 points, striker Marcus Morris, shares Brown's attitude. The Celtics have a busy pre-season schedule, with their last match scheduled for Saturday in Cleveland. The team will have more than a week – probably plenty of time to address its concerns – before its first game of the season against the Philadelphia 76ers on October 16th.
"The pre-season is for learning," Morris said. "We are looking for something special, so we will use each game as a building block to improve ourselves."
"Over the past two months, we've been paying a lot of attention to the quality of this team – and we can," added Smart. "We have the potential, but we can not activate or deactivate it."
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