Jayson Tatum recently made an appearance on Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner’s Point Forward podcast. During the course of a nearly eighty-minute episode, the panel discussed a whole bunch of topics ranging from the In-Season Tournament to Tatum’s love and admiration for Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. JT’s former coach Ime Udoka also came up during this.
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Ime Udoka coached the Boston Celtics for merely the 2021-22 season. Playing under the coaching of Udoka, Jayson Tatum and co. witnessed a lot of success. Evan Turner asked JT about the details of playing under a coach like him. At that point, the 6ft 8” forward first shed light on his love for Ime and then spoke about the team’s comeback to close out the season.
“I got so much love and respect for Ime. Coming in to that season, people forget we was 23-24. Like we was an 11th seed at one point of the season. We finished the season like 26-3,” Tatum said.
There was one point during that campaign when Udoka used Tatum’s lazy defensive play to motivate the team. Recollecting the incident, the superstar revealed what he loved about Udoka’s mentality:
“Like we would watch film and he would pause it and it be a time I was guarding Bron and I let him get past me. He would pause it and he would be like ‘Yo! Y’all not friends, y’all not homies. You trynna get to where he at’. So that mentality every day… That message to come from the top, from the coach, I think it just ran through everybody and we was on that.”
The Boston Celtics would go on to finish the regular season with the 2nd best record in the East. Making it to the NBA Finals, the Celtics suffered a tough 4-2 loss against the Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors.
Why isn’t Ime Udoka coaching Jayson Tatum and Co.?
Back in September 2022, Ime Udoka was suspended for the remainder of the 2022-23 season. Allegedly, Udoka was involved in an “improper” relationship with a female member of the team’s staff.
Cut to February 2023, reports revealed that the franchise suspended Udoka, promoting Joe Mazzulla to be the team’s permanent head coach.
Joe Mazzulla has been an exceptional coach for the Celtics. During the 2022-23 season, the franchise finished the regular season with a solid 57-25 record. Defeating the Atlanta Hawks and the Philadelphia 76ers in the postseason, they once again faced up against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Despite Mazzulla’s success, the members of the Celtics weren’t satisfied with the way the entire Udoka situation was handled.
“This locker room never got over Ime Udoka’s dismissal as head coach,” Adrian Wojnarowski reported. “These players did not accept the organization’s reasoning for doing it. They thought it was a wild overreaction. There were a lot of the people on the outside who thought it was an overreaction. That it was an HR matter.”
As of today, the Celtics are placed on top of the Eastern Conference with a 15-5 record.
