Getty Ime Udoka, Boston Celtics
Despite the Boston Celtics being shorthanded for their December 18 game against the New York Knicks, head coach Ime Udoka wasn’t letting anybody off the hook for a perceived lack of effort.
Everything had been going Boston’s way during the first half of their game against the Knicks. The Celtics were rolling and getting high-quality shots off the back of some excellent ball movement. On defense, the team was clicking. Help defenders were making the correct reads off the weak side, executing the switches quickly and effortlessly, and most importantly, winning the Celtics.
Then, after half time, cracks started to form in Boston defensive structure. They were getting out hustled, outmaneuvered, and quickly saw their 15-point lead dissipate; suddenly, the Celtics were trailing.
Time out.
An animated Ime Udoka grills his team on the sidelines, but when the Celtics return to the floor, they find their groove and don’t look back. After Boston closed out a win against the Knicks, Udoka was asked about what had been said during that third-quarter time-out, with the Celtics coach noting he let his team know how livid he was.
“I was livid, honestly. Just really, wake up! We talked about what we did well in the first half, came out and did the opposite for the most part, felt like we got a little cute there and relaxed. But, give them credit. They responded well. 41-point quarter, and then we got back to lockdown defense and held them to 19 in the fourth quarter.
They responded well. We made it harder on ourselves than it had to be but still give the group credit. Coming off a hard-fought game yesterday, coming off a back-to-back, with extended minutes due to all the people missing, we just had a little lapse there. Snapped out of it, picked it up where we left off in the first half,” Udoka explained.
Josh Richardson Thinks Ime’s Outburst Was Needed
Josh Richardson is one of the few Celtics players to understand what it’s like to be coached by Udoka after the pair spent a season together in Philadelphia. During that season, Al Horford was also on the Sixers roster, so he also has a rapport with the new Celtics coach.
But for the rest of the team, most of them only know Brad Stevens and his coaching methods. Still, at the quarter mark of the season, every member of the Celtics roster is now becoming accustomed to Udoka’s methods, and it would seem his belief in holding people accountable is starting to pay dividends.
“I don’t know how much he told you, and I ain’t no snitch, so I can’t really get into that. But he laid into us good, and that’s what good coaches know they need to do sometimes. We were bleeding, and we needed to stop it, and it wasn’t happening. So, we sat down and he let us have it, as he should of. And I think that was a good moment for him going forward, and he said in the locker room, ‘I don’t want to have to do that, and I was like ‘Nah, we needed that.’ I said that in front of everybody, I was like, ‘that was good, we needed that,'” Richard said when asked about what Udoka had told the team during their time-out.
Richardson may be right because once the team got back on the floor, they looked focused on the task at hand and quickly regained control of the contest, where previously we may have seen the Celtics head drop and they fall further behind.
Celtics Continue to Play Shorthanded
Like most teams around the league right now, Boston is playing shorthanded. COVID is making its way through the NBA with worrying speed and precision, causing teams to dig deep into their bench and oftentimes into 10-day hardship exemptions, just so eight-man rosters can be submitted.
Luckily, the Celtics still have enough high-level rotation players to remain competitive, but as we’ve seen with other teams, availability is subject to change, with no warning. As such, it’s understandable that the Celtics struggled to replicate their first-half intensity during the third quarter against the Knicks – they were on the second night of a back-to-back, and everyone was playing big minutes.
Now, after a day of rest, we can look forward to the Celtics facing off against their conference rivals, the Philadelphia 76ers, on Monday, December 20, with both teams looking to add another victory to their win column.
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