WALTHAM — Gerald Wallace is in his 14th NBA season. Brad Stevens is in his second.

And when the former hears the coach trying to take the heat for the way the Celtics have been playing, particularly in the early moments of games, Wallace has a very simple reaction.

“That sounds very crazy,” he said. “I think, all due respect to Brad, having a young team, he’s just trying to take the blame.

“But this isn’t his fault. It’s on our starters. They’ve got to get us off to better starts in games, and right now we’ve been very sluggish at the start — and it’s been happening all year. We dig ourselves a hole that’s hard to get out of, and we just can’t afford that. We spend so much of our energy battling and fighting to get back into the games that by the time the fourth quarter comes, we’re burnt out because we’ve used all our gas getting back into the game.

“So our starters have to do a better job controlling the momentum and the tempo of the game from the start.”

If it makes no sense to you that the Celts could be so lax with just an 11-21 record, it makes less sense to Wallace.

“It’s like they’re walking into a situation where you feel like you can flip the switch on at any time, and you can’t do that in this league,” he said. “Teams come out hard on you. The first one that hits the hardest is usually the one that sets the tone for the game and gets the calls and everything.

“And we can’t have that be the other team, especially at home. We’ve got to be able to come out and be the most aggressive ones, you know, hit first and take it to those teams and have them play on their heels instead of us being on our heels.”

In truth, the Celtics shouldn’t need to wait until sand is kicked in their face to respond. But when it happens repeatedly, you might expect that it would disturb them and lead to action.

“Eventually you’d want to see that,” Wallace said. “At the end of the day, something has to click. We have to take pride. We have to do something about that. Right now, I think it starts with us setting the tone and setting the momentum of the game from the start. When we come out as the aggressors, we play very well. But when we don’t, we always find ourselves back on our heels, and it’s hard to get going.”

Looking at the most recent starting five of Jeff Green, Jared Sullinger, Tyler Zeller, Avery Bradley and Evan Turner, the problem is not with each of them, and the breakdowns aren’t always in the same areas, according to Wallace.

“It’s basketball,” he said. “This is a five-player game, and those five guys have to be together. So if you’ve got three guys on one page and two guys on another page, it’s going to look (bad) all night long, you know what I’m saying? You’ve got to have all five guys on the page. Hey, even if you can just get four of those guys on the page and one guy off it, those four guys can cover for that one guy. But when you’ve got multiple guys on different pages, it makes it difficult.”

Softening his stance for a moment, Wallace said, “That’s a young team. That’s what you get with a young team, a team that’s still learning and in that process. Eventually they’ll get there, but right now it’s not getting through. It’s something that we’ve got to keep pushing the issue and keep forcing, and eventually things will turn around and we’ll get that understanding.”

When it was pointed out that some players have been around a few years, Wallace said, “Yeah, but they haven’t been starters. They haven’t been asked to be in that position they’re in. Mostly guys are usually coming in when the game already has its momentum set and its flow going. It’s a lot different starting a game.”

Wallace was a high-minutes spark plug in his earlier years, earning the nickname Crash. Now he has to dispense his wisdom more by word than deed, and while he admits this is more difficult to do, he might try to make sure Stevens understands the problem lies with the people in sneakers on game night.

“I’d have no problem talking to coach about that,” Wallace said. “But right now, my thing is just trying to help these guys understand what they’re doing and how they can help the team out and what we can do to change this thing and get us headed in the right direction.”