Ime Udoka's first experience participating in the storied rivalry between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers was a success. The green and white shook off an ugly first-quarter performance to earn a 22-point victory in front of a home crowd that included Bill Russell and Paul Pierce. Here's what Udoka had to say about a wide range of topics following the win.
On his communication with Jayson Tatum, who started the game 1-5, scoring three points in the first quarter, but finished with 37 on 13/26 shooting: “Stay aggressive on both ends of the ball...we liked some matchups, they were switching some things, and we felt if we can keep certain guys off him and bring guys on him, we felt he had the advantage all night. He did that, he scored the ball well, he got guys involved, moved it, and did what he’s been doing all year.”
On Tatum’s aggressiveness tonight:
“We stress making quick decisions. He holds it at times, and they load up. The crowd is obviously going to pay a lot of attention to him. We want him to make quick decisions. We liked some of the matchups he had. He could use his size, but he did it from everywhere tonight, isolations, post-ups, pick-and-rolls. When he’s extra aggressive like that getting downhill, he knows the crowd that he draws, they’re going to double him, and he got off the ball, which he’s done all year, but just trusting his teammates and then it opens up everything for himself. But just being extra aggressive, I liked his physicality, ducking in and hitting guys with his shoulder, and that’s what we’re looking for every night.”
When Udoka was asked about Marcus Smart setting the tone by repeatedly attacking the rim when the team was reluctant to do so in the early going, he said: “I showed them the numbers, 38 free throws (a season-high for the Celtics) for us is obviously being very aggressive. But he put his head down, especially when Davis, some of those guys went out, he really attacked their bigs when they were back a little further, and he got some of the guards on his hips, so he was extra aggressive, we needed it at the time, and when you look at what he did with our bench production, we had guys +27, +19, and +21, so they really came in and shaved some of the points off that lead, got us back in the game, and had a great defensive second quarter.”
When asked what this game says about the Celtics’ resilience: “It was a test early. We didn’t guard well and compounded it with turnovers early. The thing, I mentioned it to the guys, we stayed composed. Guys came in and contributed. 38 point quarter, after that it was 23, 21, and 26, so we locked down defensively and got back to who we are overall, and offensively, we got four thirty-point quarters, so we were great in that regard as well. But I said composure, resiliency, and just never hung our head, never felt like we were out of the game. We made some mistakes that hurt us early in the game, and cleaned those up for the rest of the game with only 14 turnovers after seven or eight in the first quarter.”
And when Udoka was asked about the Celtics gaining consistency as the season progresses, he responded: “We talked about that today. We looked over our numbers over the last eight games before tonight that we were 5-3 before tonight, but lost a 19-point lead and didn’t play full games against Dallas and the Atlanta games, so we felt we could be in better shape record-wise, but we liked the way we were trending. Second in the league defensively over those eight games. Offensively, we were 23rd overall, offensively, but it was due to a lot of poor shooting, so being in those games, with the way we were not scoring offensively, we knew we could rely on our defense, we knew where we had been, No. 1 in transition, No. 1 in guarding the three-pointer over those games, and we wanted to carry that into tonight, and after the first quarter I felt we did that.”
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