A lot was made Monday about Ime Udoka’s repeated promise to push his young Celtics team.
“We have a willing group, and they only reiterated that with myself in our conversations lately,” Udoka said at his introduction. “So looking forward to it, I’m not worried about our group worrying about hard coaching. They are asking for that, and it’s something I’m going to bring to the table.”
Scan the media landscape and you’ll see that stuck out to all of us. He said it enough times where it was very obviously a point of emphasis, but it’s not all that was said. Udoka, along with the other Celtics representatives on the dais, had other things to say that didn’t stand out quite as much, but were still notable.
Among the more interesting is the quick comment on Boston’s offense, which included a slight dig at Brad Stevens’ offense last season.
“What I was as a player, tough, hard-nosed player, defensive-minded, but I’ve loved the offensive side as well,” Udoka said. “I’ve done defense the last two years in Philly and Brooklyn, but for seven years in San Antonio, I was doing offense and defense. We want to have a well-rounded team. Looked at the numbers overall, sorry to mention this Brad, but 27th in assists last year. We want to have more team basketball.”
I wish we could have heard what was going through Stevens’ head when Udoka brought up the assist numbers from last season because I’m sure it was something along the lines of “good luck with that.”
What’s interesting is that Stevens has been trying to recreate the 2014 San Antonio Spurs with varying degrees of success. Udoka was part of that coaching staff, so in his experience, the best offense he’s been a part of is the team Stevens has been emulating.
We could see a lot of that similar egalitarian offensive theory with Udoka with the emphasis on reading and reacting. Even if Stevens were still coaching, there’s a chance it could have worked better this season because of Robert Williams’ continued progress, the addition of Al Horford and his ability to move the ball, and more lineup stability without having to account for Kemba Walker’s knee strengthening program.
Also, no longer dealing with a crush of games and, we assume, a significantly lower COVID-19 impact on the schedule, will give the team more time to rest and practice. Those factors alone should make the offense work more smoothly next season.
Of course, Udoka won’t necessarily try the exact same things Stevens has. Even if he does, or even if he uses a lot of similar principles, he might not go about it the same way. He could choose to use Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown a bit differently, having them screen more or start on different spots of the floor. Udoka has experience with an offense revolving around a dominant center in Philadelphia and a star-laden offense in Brooklyn from which to pull star-focused offensive strategies.
“You have to understand what your personnel dictates — that’s Jayson, Jaylen, guys that can really score the basketball at an elite level,” he said.
There has to be some give and take on the offensive end when there are players capable of doing what these guys can do. Tatum in particular spent the regular season isolating 18.6% of the time and only scoring 0.82 points per possession (PPP), a horrible number. Then against Udoka’s Nets in the playoffs, Tatum more than doubled his isolation attempts and suddenly scored 1.21 PPP on those plays, an outrageously great number.
There has to be an allowance to harness the good parts of Tatum’s isolation, which in the playoffs involved a lot of getting to the rim, while also encouraging him to dump the midrange fadeaways that dragged his regular-season numbers down. Frankly, that might be his starting point.
Last season’s offense was especially troublesome when it didn’t involve Tatum or Brown going supernova. Udoka’s biggest challenge on this end of the floor is going to be fostering the trust between players to move the ball. That’s also partly on Stevens now because he’ll have to make sure the players at Udoka’s disposal are trustworthy. However, it doesn’t change the fact that part of last year’s problem was too much of a "my turn/your turn" mentality.
When Udoka is pushing these guys, it will have to involve pushing them to understand that giving the ball up often means getting it back in a better position to score. Pace, space, and trust are really the only elements the Celtics need. Talent can take over from there.
Last season was a bit of an aberration, but aberrations can quickly become norms if they don’t get corrected. If Udoka can find that balance in this year’s team, we could see a significant turnaround in their ability to score.