Steve Bulpett of the Herald has some terrific quotes from Doc Rivers, who discussed the current state of the team:
"I think when you have a veteran team there's several pitfalls," Rivers said. "One, you're a veteran team. Two, ‘We'll turn it on.' Well, I don't buy into that. I never have.
"Three, leaning back on your past success. Your past success is no guarantee to future success, and I think this team leans back too far on what they've done. And we've got to get to work on what we're going to do."
"We have to get back to work. We have to get back to that workman's mentality. We have to get back to wanting to be the best defensive team in the NBA. We have to get back to executing better.
"We can't just keep relying on guys coming back off of injury. That has thrown us off a little bit because of lack of practice time and all that, but I think that's become an excuse around here. We're not going to allow that. We can't allow that."
"Right now we're the team that's playing poorly. We need to get back to that team that was 23-5. We were playing terrific basketball. We were playing simple basketball, and we were trusting everything. And right now we're not."
At the very least, it's comforting knowing these problems are not being overlooked by the team. Bulpett also mentions how some of the players have been lining up in Doc's office, hoping to address the problems and work on solutions. This is all good stuff, because it proves that this team realizes that it's facing some serious adversity right now, but that it wants to overcome it.
And the first step to recovery, as they say, is admitting that you have a problem.
Also: Add Gerry Callahan to the list of guys who thinks Ray Allen should be traded.