The Celtics seemed out of sync during the 2018-19 season, to say the least. Boston struggled with communication and chemistry throughout the regular season, and didn’t make it beyond the second round of the NBA playoffs.
But things are different now, according to Marcus Smart. And there appears to be more to last season’s struggles than originally met the eye.
“I think it was hard for everybody last year, including myself,” Smart recently told ESPN’s Zach Lowe on “The Lowe Podcast.” “I was dealing with my mom’s passing, and everybody had their own little individual things that they were dealing with that when it came to the team, it was like, ‘Eh, oh well. I’ve got more things to stress about that I need to be focused on right now individually,’ that the team kind of got put in the back shed and it affected us.”
So, what changed between this season and last? Mindset.
“Now, everybody’s mind is free,” he said. “Everybody’s confident. Everybody believes more in themselves. And we’re just having fun again. Whatever anybody individually was working on, instead of holding it in, we’re now even talking to each other about it. We couldn’t do that last year. … Just for the simple fact you didn’t know what anybody was going through. You was afraid to talk. You didn’t know how to talk to anybody.
“Growing up as young men, you’re always taught you don’t want to show your emotions, you don’t want to cry. And it’s the stigma around that. As a man, you’re supposed to be manly. Crying is not manly. Talking about your feelings is not manly, when that’s not true. That hurts. That hurts you in the long run. Mental health is a big issue in a lot of sports, and that was what was going on (with the 2018-19 Celtics).
“Everybody was afraid to talk to each other because, one, we didn’t know how. Two, we didn’t know if the person we was going to talk to was going to understand, or if they were willing to understand. And instead of putting ourselves out there, we just decided to hold it in.”
Instead of making excuses for last season’s shortcomings, however, the Celtics used them as a teachable moment.
“I think last year just opened our eyes to the outcome of holding all that pent up aggression or whatever you’re going through inside,” Smart said. “That not going to work for us, that’s only going to bring us down and everybody hated feeling down.”
And unlike some critics of the 2018-19 squad, Smart wasn’t willing to pin things on former Celtic (and current Brooklyn Net) Kyrie Irving.
“I’m cool with Kyrie. I’m still cool with Kyrie. … Kyrie is a great person. Kyrie had issues, we know, just like every last one of us. Kyrie had to go through some things that he’s never been through alone, and he had to deal with it. He didn’t know how to deal with this. This was his first time having his own team, not being with LeBron (James), not having somebody whose been bombarded with (those) things and know what to say, what to do and how to do it and when to do it. He had to deal with that on his own, just like everybody else, and that affected him as well.”
