Boston Celtics forward Gerald Wallace was extremely critical of his new team Sunday after an ugly loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Wallace stood by his comments at practice on Tuesday, according to Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald.
Celtics coaches tell Gerald Wallace to ease up on criticism
Wallace stood by his recent criticism of the Celtics, but he revealed coaches have told him to tone it down a bit.
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However, Wallace also said the Celtics’ coaching staff told him to ease up a bit on the harsh critiques, even if much of what the veteran said was true:
“I’m getting fussed at by the coaches every time,” said Wallace. “They’re trying to tell me to relax and ease up. But the main thing is I want the guys to compete. If we lose all 82 games, but we lose them going down fighting and competing hard. I can live with that. I can’t live with losing and we didn’t compete, we didn’t give our best effort and we just gave the game away. I don’t want that for these guys and this team.”
Wallace, who was traded from to the Celtics from the Brooklyn Nets this offseason, is clearly frustrated with how things have played out for him over the last few months. He went from a contender to a team in rebuilding mode, and things have been pretty ugly thus far in Boston.
New Celtics coach Brad Stevens knew this was going to be a process, and he also knew there would be some disgruntled veterans. While Stevens may agree with some of Wallace’s comments, he likely doesn’t want to see a veteran like Wallace be so down on the team so early in his tenure as he tries to implement his system and gain the respect of his players.
Although, it should be noted that Stevens did say that Tuesday’s practice was one of the better ones of training camp. So perhaps Wallace’s words did light a bit of a fire under the team.
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