Brad Stevens unable to explain Celtics' struggles

New York, November 23: Brad Stevens has spoken of his disappointed at the Boston Celtics' miserable start to the season.

The Celtics were expected to be one of the best teams in the NBA entering the 2018-19 campaign, but they have a 9-9 record so far.

Stevens, in his sixth year as Celtics coach, opened up about his team's struggles when he met with reporters on Wednesday (November 21) following a 117-109 loss to the lowly New York Knicks.

"I just don't know that we're that good. Maybe it's not a wake-up call if you keep getting beat," Stevens said, as quoted by NBC Sports Boston.

"We have to play better. It's not because we're not capable of being good. It's not because we weren't good at one time in our lives. It's you're good if you play good and the results are speaking for themselves."

The Celtics finished 2017-18 with a 55-27 record and advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they fell to the Cleveland Cavaliers in seven games.

But Stevens acknowledged his team are not playing with the same energy level this term.

That’s game pic.twitter.com/ZPXMkPZwwZ

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) November 22, 2018

"It's not one guy. It's not two guys. It's all of us," he added. "We're not playing with the same personality we played with last year. That's the easiest way to describe it. And then the 50,000 issues that are below that, we have to tackle one at a time."

Boston have lost their last three games and five of their last seven, but Stevens said there's no guarantee the team will get back to winning ways.

"The reality is you have to grind it out, you have to work and you have to be able to weather all this other stuff that’s going along with it," Stevens said.

"The storm is part of a job. And I'm looking forward to getting a chance to really dig in, and hopefully we can weather it."

The Celtics will return to the court when they face the Hawks in Atlanta on Friday (November 23).