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“Ime Udoka goes from playing against Stephen Curry to coaching against him in the NBA Finals”: Warriors MVP and Celtics coach’s rivalry goes more than 10-years back

Akash Murty
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“Ime Udoka goes from playing against Stephen Curry to coaching against him in the NBA Finals”: Warriors MVP and Celtics coach’s rivalry goes more than 10-years back

The Celtics have finally made it past the Conference Finals led by Ime Udoka ‘s brilliant coaching in his first year but will now face the Warriors.

The Boston Celtics come through to the NBA Finals for the first time in 12 years. Five among those 12 years, they got eliminated at the hands of a LeBron James team. And now they face the man who stopped LeBron from having 7 Championships.

Stephen Curry and the Warriors will be in their 6th Finals in 8 years when they take on the Cs while the latter has no players who played in the NBA Finals ever in their life.

And so none of them ever played mighty Warriors of the Playoffs. But there is a man in that team that has a winning record over Steph and the Dubs in regular-season games.

Also read: “Stephen Curry came to Barack Obama’s support with a unique $28,000 auction”: How the Warriors star gave back to his community by putting his shoes up for auction

However, it is not anyone who will be taking the court on Thursday, it’s their Head Coach, the 44-year-old former Spurs and Kings’ small forward who played seven seasons in the league.

Ime Udoka will face Stephen Curry ‘s Warriors for the 9th time, the first six of the previous eight came as a player and Udoka held a 4-2 winning record.

Not much credit has gone to the Boston coach for leading his team to play the best basketball they have played in a while and are at max 7 games away from the ultimate glory. The man knows how to win games against Stephen Curry and Co. and we are talking about the time he played in the league.

During his last two years in the league, with the San Antonio Spurs and Sacramento Kings, Udoka appeared in six games opposite a young and budding point guard and won their career series, 4-2.

Although much has changed since, as that very guard has become one of the game’s greatest ever and is the centerpiece of what the Warriors have done in the past decade, winning 2 MVPs alongside several individual honors.

It’ll be interesting to see how the first-year coach having players with 0 Playoff experience will go against a team whose still intact core of the head coach Steve Kerr and Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson have won 3 Championships.

Also read: ‘Kevin Durant makes Nike $175 million a year, but they almost lost him’: How Under Armour wanted to pair Nets star with Steph Curry but missed out

About the author

Akash Murty

Akash Murty

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An Electrical and Electronics Engineer by degree, Akash Murty is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. Previously a Software Engineer, Murty couldn’t keep himself away from sports, and his knack for writing and putting his opinion forward brought him to the TSR. A big Soccer enthusiast, his interest in basketball developed late, as he got access to a hoop for the first time at 17. Following this, he started watching basketball at the 2012 Olympics, which transitioned to NBA, and he became a fan of the game as he watched LeBron James dominate the league. Him being an avid learner of the game and ritually following the league for around a decade, he now writes articles ranging from throwbacks, and live game reports, to gossip. LA Lakers are his favourite basketball team, while Chelsea has his heart in football. He also likes travelling, reading fiction, and sometimes cooking.

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