Gerald Wallace rips team

Here's the entire rant uncut from Gary Washburn of the Globe:

"I'm very surprised. Right now, we're the team that's all talk," he said. "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."

...

"Like I said, guys gotta look in the mirror man. It's gotta be the individual. It's gotta be timeout for I and what I can do to help us win?" he said. "What can I do to help the team win? What can I come out on the court and provide to make our team better? Right now it's too much of 'I,' too many guys trying to do it on their own and in this league, that's hard to do."

...

"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 to out on the court, it's useless, it's basically like talking to the wall."

He also had some choice words for Sullinger's ejection saying that he was "just happy to see somebody take a hard foul from our bigs. He's the only big that's willing to take a hard foul not to give up a layup. I'll take that all day. We get hammered going to the hole, we shouldn't allow the other team to just come in and lay it up and dunk on us. I applaud him for that."

Denver was 14-31 from the arc, shot 38 free throws, and had 14 buckets at the rim. Usually, I take Wallace's comments with a grain of salt, but last night, he was right. The Celtics played with little effort and intensity. They can point to the thin Denver air or a the hangover from the trade that sent out much beloved Courtney Lee to Memphis, but the team was gutless last night.

It's easy to turn on Wallace; his albatross contract pays him $10 million a year and he's averaging 4-3-2. Most of us probably would want to see more action from him on the trade market rather than running his mouth to the press, but this is one of the reasons why we loved Kevin Garnett so much. Sure, KG's bite matched his bark, but with the team is in limbo right now losing 5 straight and 8 of their last 9, let's hope that Wallace's words don't fall on deaf ears. Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens have been pretty even keel (publicly) about the team's performance and haven't put a lot of pressure on actually winning games, so I'm happy that someone--even if it's Wallace--is saying something.

The last time Wallace raged like this, the Celtics lost two more miserable games against the Spurs and Pacers, but won 6 of 8 after that playing their best basketball. I would love for Boston to shove it down Doc's throat tonight after reading this rah-rah-I'm-always-a-Celtic interview with the Herald's Steve Bulpett.