Among the many things we have learned about Ime Udoka during his first season as Celtics coach are that he doesn’t beat around the bush, and profanity is definitely part of his vocabulary.
Dubs get drubbed in Game 3 at Boston
So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when some bad habits started to creep in during Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday, Udoka called a timeout and delivered a blunt message to his team.
“Will you guys stop playing like a**holes?,” Udoka asked his players, according to Heavy.com’s Steve Bulpett.
Bulpett didn’t specify exactly when this happened, but a decent guess would be maybe the third quarter, when Boston let a 12-point lead slip away.
Regardless, the Celtics did stop playing like a-holes and went on to outscore the Warriors 23-11 in the fourth quarter to close out a 116-100 victory and take a 2-1 series lead.
This is not the first time Udoka has used fiery language to get his point across this postseason. In the second round against the Bucks, he told Robert Williams, “You’ve got to stop letting motherf***ers run you over.” In the Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat, he got in Grant Williams’ face during a heated exchange on the bench. During Game 2 of the Finals, he called the ref the p-word and the b-word after getting called for a technical foul.
It’s clear that the Celtics respond to Udoka, so it’s a credit to him that he was able to earn enough respect in Year 1 that he can be so direct with them.
Just don’t tell Klay Thompson and Steve Kerr he uses this kind of language. They might not think it’s classy.
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