Ime Udoka got his coaching start in San Antonio in 2012, learning under the legendary Gregg Popovich for seven years on his way to becoming a head coach with the Celtics this summer. Udoka has preached Popovich’s offensive principles of team play and selfless offensive basketball since his hire in Boston this summer but the results from this group have been inconsistent on that front to say the least.
On Friday night in San Antonio, Boston’s offensive production took another ugly turn as Udoka faced his mentor as a head coach for the first time and watched his team fall behind as many as 24 points in the game’s opening 15 minutes amid a horrific shooting start, posting just 18 points over the game’s first 15 minutes. The visitors ultimately rallied their way back into the game in the second half and held the lead in the fourth quarter but stumbled late by giving up a 15-0 run to the Spurs in the closing three minutes of a 96-88 defeat.
That late collapse is likely to garner the most attention after the defeat but after Friday’s loss, Udoka was far more focused on the team’s ugly start in his postgame press conference. Boston has been one of the worst first quarter teams in the league all season and Udoka was not shy about explaining the cause of that after the defeat.
“We knew they were a team that switches everything and we just held the ball and tried to do it by ourselves,” Udoka said. “No ball movement, no penetration for your teammates. In the second quarter, third quarter in the fourth it was night and day from that. So talk about teams that switch everything, it’s not always for you. Get your teammates involved.
“We showed clips at halftime when we did a few times in the first half, and they carried that into the second half. So we came out, looked like everybody’s taking turns trying to get baskets and obviously very slow, sluggish, and stagnant. We talked about it at halftime, it wasn’t really defensively, they had 52 points, but we were just shooting so poorly, that even the open looks we got we missed, but it was a lot of isolation, one-on-one instead of movement.”
Boston’s starting five was without Robert Williams for this contest and went with on paper, what should have been a better offensive group from a spacing standpoint with Dennis Schroder getting the start in his place. However, that offense sputtered early, mustering just 37 points on 14-of-50 shooting from the field in the first half. No member of the Celtics starting five shot above 30 percent in that span besides Jaylen Brown with the entire group collectively going 9-of-39 from the field in the opening 24 minutes.
Some bench contributions helped the Celtics erase some of San Antonio’s 24-point lead before halftime but the pitiful start had Udoka calling out specific starters by name after the defeat for their early play.
“We know what they’re going to do defensively and just have to continue to play together,” Udoka said. “It’s habits that we need to break, not trying to go isolation with all those you know, we got Marcus, Jaylen, Jayson and Dennis starting they need to learn to play together. Not try to just get baskets for themselves. And so that’s what really hurt us in the first quarter and then we got back to who we are in the last three quarters.”
Udoka has not been shy about criticizing his players in his first two months at the helm in Boston and the Celtics initially responded well to those critiques prior to the past week, winning eight of 11 games in one stretch to pull themselves back over .500. However, after languishing in the bottom of the league for first quarter offense (24th) and net rating (25th) through 20 games of the season, Udoka is putting everyone’s feet to the fire once more.
“I feel like, at times, we are trying to get ourselves going and not coming ready to play,” Udoka said of the first quarter woes. “We shouldn’t have to take two or three shots to get us in a rhythm or get us going. Come out and play the way we do in the second, third and fourth quarter from the start. Guys are trying to find their rhythm instead of playing together and that’s what it looks like to me in the first quarter at times. Everybody is worried about their game and getting themselves going instead of what’s best for the team and playing together. When we do that, it’s very apparent that we are different offensively.”
With so many rotation players in and out of the lineup thus far, it’s been tough for this group to get much consistency in the starting five. However, it’s evident patience is wearing thin for Udoka when it comes to cohesiveness for the starting five out of the gate. The rookie head coach has avoided any major changes early in the season to the rotation but tweaks could be coming if the group doesn’t respond to his wishes.
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