How Al Horford, Jayson Tatum Believe Ime Udoka Has Fared To Start Season

Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka is nearing the quarter pole of his first season as a head coach in the NBA, and seems to be instructing at a level those playing for him respect.

Udoka has the Celtics playing a much-improved brand of basketball for much of the last month. The Celtics have bought in to the defensive intensity of effort Udoka tried to implement from the jump, and Monday’s most recent win over the Cleveland Cavaliers was another depiction of that.

Now, as Udoka himself noted, the Celtics will look to focus on the offensive mentality with ball movement and spacing being among those aspects at the forefront. It will serve as the next building block for a team that got back to .500 on Monday.

All told, a pair of players in Al Horford and Jayson Tatum seem to think Udoka has fared well after the early part of the 2021 campaign.

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“Just kind of reading the game as it’s going and continuing to establish how he wants us to play,” Horford said of Udoka on Monday after Boston’s win. “Defensively, I feel like we’ve made strides in that area and we continue to get better. And you know, on offense, he keeps harping on how he wants us to be and how he wants us to play.

“And in the second half tonight, playing with with more pace and moving the ball a little more, it’s the way that you want to play and it’s a lot of fun when we play that way,” Horford said.

Tatum added how both he and fellow teammates want to help Udoka out as he continues to navigate his first year.

“I’ve seen a lot,” Tatum said of Udoka. “Like I’ve said before, I can only imagine how tough it is just starting your career, your first head coaching job, the expectations and I guess just everything, all the ins-and-outs trying to figure it out. And I’m trying my best along (with the) other guys to help him out. It’s like we’re in a relationship, we’re trying to help each other out to achieve the same goal.”

The Celtics will look to make it four wins in their last five games when they travel to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday.