Gerald Wallace was not surprised to see Jared Sullinger get ejected after a couple of borderline flagrant fouls on Tuesday. The way the Boston Celtics have played the last two games, Wallace did not see why any call should go the Celtics’ way until they start to play like they mean it.
“Everything was going their way, so why should [we] get the benefit of the doubt?” Wallace said after Boston’s 129-98 loss, according to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. “We’re not playing worth crap anyway.”
The Celtics have lost eight of their last nine games and have given up their two highest opponent point totals of the season in the last two games. They have gone through rough patches before, each time saying all the right things and coming out with a very brief turnaround, but talk is starting to become cheap.
Wallace is looking for action, not just words.
“I’m very surprised,” Wallace told the Globe. “Right now, we’re the team that’s all talk. We talk about how we want to get better. We talk about things we need to do to get better. It’s easy to go out and practice and do it. Practice doesn’t really apply to anything with making yourself better. When they turn them lights on, when it really counts, when it’s about the team and making the team better and trying to win as a team, we don’t do it.”
Wallace, who called out his teammates for “selfish” play during their 2-6 preseason and accused players of “stat-padding” in November, scoffed at the suggestion that the players need to meet to sort out their issues.
“We done met, we done talked, we done did everything, we done argued, fussed, complained, moaned, everything you can do,” he said. “It doesn’t matter in here. It matters out there on the court. And until we can take all the talk and everything that we say in here and apply it out on the court, it’s useless, it’s basically like talking to the wall.”
