I think we have to first look through the Celtic's underperfromance through the lenses 1) the series of injuries and missed games of the first 30 or so games (Kemba-Smart-Tatum') and 2) the impact of covid magnifying problems of cohesion on a young team, and working around the roster problems caused by #1 and the non-contributions of Nesmith, Langford and the regression of GW.
This stuff is probably solvable. And I'm not sure its really anyone's fault.
What's more troubling is post all-star game, an undisciplined, dispirited, lack of effort, efforts have been put forth. This smells like a lack of leadership from coaching and from players. I had hoped that TT was going to be an added veteran voice to help lead a young team to the next step, or maybe Smart would help Tatum and Brown become more decisive and be team leaders. IMO a team leader needs to emerge. My guess is the role belongs to the more demonstrative Smart, versus the more cerebral Brown, but he needs to get the two all-stars to sign on. There may be a chemistry issue either internal among players, or players might be tuning out CBS.
Or maybe they need the outside stimulus of 17,000 fans screaming "LETS GO CELTS" to motivate them. Maybe they need the passion of fans to fill the void left by a year-long quarantine.
I'm at a loss, I want my Celtics back., the one that played team ball, made the next pass, played D and played hard in crunch time.
Where did those guys go?