The Boston Celtics are the NBA’s most confusing team

Marcus Smart recently spoke out about the Boston Celtics’ struggles. Since then they’ve had two impressive wins and one dud. Here’s a look at the NBA’s most confusing team.

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart is not one to shy away from saying what he believes. He’s one of the more vocal players in the league and that has been a good thing for Boston.

The Celtics haven’t played up to expectations so far in this 2018-19 season. They’re currently 9-7, but were only one game above .500 when Smart called out the team. Even the games they were winning weren’t pretty.

The game against the Phoenix Suns should have been a contest they controlled. However, they were down big to one of the worst teams in the league. If it weren’t for a late surge and thrilling overtime win, the Celtics may be looking at themselves a little differently.

Following the loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Nov. 11, Smart made some comments about the team’s play, per NBC Sports‘ Chris Forsberg:

"“Especially with the team that we have and the potential that we have, we shouldn’t be losing games that we know we should win. Let alone, getting down 20 early and putting more pressure on ourselves and more stress on ourselves to come back.”"

Smart claimed that he hates losing more than he likes winning. He’s a vocal player, but it appears that the team has received that wakeup call. Smart’s co-partner for Boston’s “Bench With Attitude,” Marcus Morris, agreed with what the former Oklahoma State guard had to say.

"“What he said was real. He said we’ve got to fix this s***. He said, ‘It’s not OK. It’s not OK. We need to fix it.’ And I agree with him, 100 percent.”"

By and large, the Celtics have agreed with what was said, despite the play being shown on the court. Boston won its first two games since those comments, including a blowout win against the Chicago Bulls and a statement win against the Toronto Raptors.

Like Smart said, the Celtics should not be losing games they’re supposed to be winning. They didn’t allow the Bulls to get ahead, winning by a large margin of 111-82. They even ended Zach LaVine‘s streak of scoring at least 20 or more points in every game he’s played in this season.

The Raptors have looked like they’re the frontrunners to win the Eastern Conference. Both sides battled in Friday night’s game, but it was the Celtics pushing the game into overtime and coming out on top.

Then came a whopping loss to the Utah Jazz. Utah is a good team, but the Celtics went from being one of the top teams on offense in their previous two games, to one of the worst in the league Saturday night. They were only able to score 86 points.

The team shot 35-for-91 from the field (38.5 percent) and 5-of-33 from 3 (15.2 percent). Those percentages include Kyrie Irving‘s 20 points on an efficient 8-for-16 shooting from the field and 1-for-2 from 3.

It seemed as if the comments really hit the team after the win against the Raptors. Unfortunately this three-game stretch has been a perfect representation of the season as a whole. The potential to be elite is there, but things just aren’t clicking.

Despite Smart not being in the starting lineup or putting up bit offensive numbers, his presence and leadership is just as important. He will need to continue to be a vocal leader for this team if they want to correct these issues. It’s only been 16 games, but the Celtics have been one of the most confusing teams to watch in the NBA so far.