Brad Stevens faces a major challenge with underachieving Celtics

A team that was expected to make a run at a spot in the NBA Finals is off to a 9-9 start, and the coach in his sixth year in Boston must find answers before the season slips away.

BOSTON - There was outrage from some last season when he finished third in the voting for the NBA coach of the year award.

Brad Stevens had guided a Celtics team that lost Gordon Hayward to a gruesome opening-night injury and had Kyrie Irving for only 60 games to the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference with 55 wins.

And after the voting was complete, the Celtics made it all the way to Game 7 of the conference finals before losing to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers with an undermanned team.

Now in his sixth season with the Celtics, Stevens has earned the label as one of the best coaches in the NBA for the way he has gotten the most out of players since arriving on the scene from Butler University in 2013.

There is, however, no praise being showered on Stevens through 18 games this season, which is what happens when the Eastern Conference favorite struggles to a 9-9 record nearly a quarter of the way through the schedule.

A season that began with such high expectations in mid-October is looking like it is heading for disaster unless Stevens and the Celtics can start finding answers to all that ails them.

They have dropped seven of 10 games and have piles of problems, a number of which were on display Wednesday night when they were embarrassed by the lowly New York Knicks, 117-109, at the TD Garden.

And when it was over, Stevens sat at his press conference and looked like a man frustrated by what’s happened over the past five-plus weeks.

“I just don’t know that we’re that good,’’ said Stevens, whose team opens a three-game road trip On Friday night in Atlanta against the Hawks (7:35, TV: NBC Sports Boston; radio: WROR-105.7 FM). “Maybe it’s not a wakeup call if you keep getting beat. We have to play better.

“It’s not because we’re not capable of being good. You’re good if you play good and the results are speaking for themselves. This is a lot of things. We have a myriad of issues we have to fix.’’

That is the huge challenge facing Stevens, who began the season knowing it would take time for Hayward to be himself again after suffering a dislocated ankle and fractured leg and knew that there’d be some adjustments with Irving returning as the leader.

But he couldn’t have anticipated Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier and, at times, Jayson Tatum being unable to blend in after taking their games to new levels last season. He couldn’t have envisioned a lack of toughness that got the Celtics through some difficult situations in the past. And he couldn’t have envisioned an offense that looks lost far too often, missing way too many 3-pointers.

“It’s not one guy,’’ said Stevens. “It’s not two guys. It’s all of us. 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.

“We’re not playing with the same personality we played with last year.’’

There appears to be some unhappiness among players about minutes, and the potential was there for that with such a deep roster.

The longer these struggles go on, the more difficult it is going to be for Stevens as the unhappiness will only grow as the losing continues.

“You know, it’s not guaranteed that you’re going to be able to turn it around, though,’’ said Stevens. “And 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 on with it.

“I heard (Philadelphia 76ers coach) Brett Brown say this earlier in the year, and this is where coaches are sick, in a twisted way, because the losing eats you alive. But the storm is part of the job. And I’m looking forward to getting a chance to really dig in, and hopefully we can weather it.”

Stevens recalled one season at Butler when a team that had lofty expectations got off to an up-and-down start, then found the right formula and took off as expected.

“Our defense was the one that was really hurting us, and what turned that around was we just decided to be nasty tough,’’ said Stevens. “We just went with it, and then, all of a sudden, everything fell into place and we just put everything else aside and grit our teeth and played.’’

That is a lesson the Celtics need to follow starting with the road trip, or else a season that was so highly anticipated is going to be a brutal one for them.

“We just can’t wait anymore, honestly,’’ said Irving. “For myself, everyone else as a collective, our coaching staff, we just don’t have time to really be waiting to see if guys are going to give that extra effort, including myself.

“It’s just an accountability standpoint, that we all have to have, and I think we’re taking steps in the right direction. I think it’s just tiring at this point, when we show flashes of brilliance, and we put ourselves in a deep hole and we’re consistently coming back, and we can’t play like that.’’

Stevens has been hailed as an elite coach, one who successfully made the jump from the college ranks to the NBA. But now he faces his greatest challenge with a team that is leaving everyone scratching their heads.

Jim Fenton may be reached at jfenton@enterprisenews.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JFenton_ent.