Celtics ‘focusing on the future and controlling what we can control’ as Boston heads into the stretch run, says Marcus Smart

Boston hopes to continue winning as they face the Brooklyn Nets Thursday night.

The Boston Celtics struggled early in the 2021-22 NBA season with consistency on both ends of the floor, hovering around a .500 record while the team slowly found its way to the great consternation of many fans suffering through far more losses than they had expected to bear witness to.

But after growing more familiar with their core players and the schema new head coach Ime Udoka had been trying to bring on, the wins slowly began to tick upwards until the Celtics managed to fight their way out of range of the play-in tournament with a nine-game winning streak.

Speaking to the press after practice on Thursday, veteran guard Marcus Smart shared his thoughts on how the team went through that process. “I think for me and I think for us, we were just disappointed that we couldn’t get it early in the season,” he explained.