Ime Udoka press conference after loss to Hawks 12/20/2023

Ime: This team without Fred doesn't work.

 

For anyone that didn’t watch it…

Lack of toughness cited several times.

Poor defense and efforts - screens slipped. Discussed poor defense by Sengun but then stated he isn’t the only one.

Team falls apart without FVV.

Amen is rusty and made mistakes.

Green needs to be consistent every game and read the defense for what shots to take.

Ime isn’t happy - everyone needs to play harder and smarter and play hard from the outset.

 

Green is very consistent

Amen being hurt, then sick has delayed his progress.

Ime isnt happy and neither am I.

 

I'm interested in how Sengun responds against Dallas after tonight. I liked this quote from VanVleet, who said it was difficult to be playing from behind for most of the night.

“It’s the best players in the world, it’s hard enough as is,” he said. “So it's especially (tough) when you let a team get comfortable, let them play free and easy, let them get wide-open looks. They're a good offensive team but we didn't make it tough on them at all.”

Sengun struggled defensively against Atlanta, in my opinion, and I thought Coach Udoka made it plain that Alperen has had a difficult stretch defensively the last few games. We need him to step up on defense. He'll need to if we hope to win against a very good Dallas team. About 3 weeks ago, we played well against Dallas and Sengun had a very good game, with 31 points, 9 boards, and 6 assists in 34 minutes, but we still lost.

Why did we lose against Dallas? Heck, why did we lose tonight. One reason is that we continue to have an issue with Dillon Brooks, an All NBA defensive player who has a difficult time staying on the court and giving us that great defensive pressure he's capable of. Brooks played 27 minutes in that Dallas game and ultimately fouled out.

Tonight? Dillon quickly collected fouls, if my memory isn't failing me, and ended up playing 29 minutes with 5 fouls. Fred VanVleet, an excellent defender himself, in contrast played 44 minutes, scored 32 points, and dished 15 dimes while collecting 3 fouls. Jabari Smith managed to have 3 fouls in 41 minutes while having arguably the best game of his young career with 34 points and 13 boards, while also playing good defense.

Few would argue against the fact that Dillon Brooks is our best defender. I certainly think he is, but if you consistently collect early fouls so that you end up parked on our bench, often some of those fouls a player as skilled as he is playing defense should have been able to avoid, just how much good are you doing for your team on defense? That's putting aside that he's also a skilled offensive player.

It's frustrating to watch. Yes, Alperen Sengun's defense is inconsistent. It can be up and down from one game to another, although his defense this season has definitely improved. That's frustrating as well, but he's in his 3rd season at age 21. Brooks is 27, deeply experienced, and a player who makes a strong, positive impact... when he's on the court playing, instead of sitting on our bench, frustrated and watching the game.

Just some thoughts after watching tonight's game.

 

We were also missing Tari's energy tonight.

 

It's amazing how much criticism Udoka manages to administer without sounding harsh.

It's the low-register monotone, the lack of audible or visible anger. If you saw a transcript of what he's saying, much of it is blunt castigation of his players. Well deserved, but remarkably blunt.

 

Sengun is starting to piss me off with his unwillingness to be aggressive. Green is just bad. When those two guys don't play with force (especially Sengun) we are a lottery team.

 

There was a moment early where we failed to inbound the ball (from memory Jabari was the inbounder), and Udoka looked to his on-court vets, asking them to raise the effort levels.....


We need to start better next game!!

 

Udokas big talk of meritocracy and nothing given everything earned is losing credibility over Jalen

At this point Jalen is the worst player in our rotation, yet he’s starting, averaging over 30 mpg, 2nd in USG, 3rd in FGA

What for?

 

Ime Udoka is struggling in trying to uproot two years of bad habits and lazy basketball. Some of us been saying that the damage would be long-lasting, but people here on CF were too busy sucking each others' decks over every J.Green 30pt game or Sengun's no-look pass, and counting ping-pong balls...

 

We are nothing without Tari's energy, defense and shooting. Nothing.

 

I agree. Both Taris energy and Senguns defense were missing tonight

 

Nobody humane can sustain playing Under 100 point or Under 95 point type of Defense over an entire season........lmao.

Let's get real here.....but yeah, the drop off came really all of a sudden though.

 

Maybe they have him on the trade block and are hoping he will have a hot run for a few games and get some teams excited....that's all I can guess.

If it's based on merit then Tari should be SF with Brooks SG and Holiday backup SG. Jalen 3rd string.

 

That is when Ime cannot really do anything...he probably can get them to bounce back to another 3 game winning streak but this will keep on happening until the end of the season.

I thought injuries to starters would derail this but this is happening due to mental fatigue......and the inability to do super human efforts every game.

The construct where everyone is relying on old veterans is never going to hold to begin with.

Was fun while that lasted.

 

Not only Jalen, other players are drifting off on Defense as well.......it was bound to happen.....

You really think you can hold other teams to under 95 points every game? Not going to happen.

You can see Udoker getting listless more and more.

 

Tate reverting back to his irrelevant existence.........NBA realm is cruel over 80 games.

He looked like the King of Thieves one month ago.

 

Offense not good enough plain and simple. Couldn’t get out to a bigger lead after we were up by 5 or 6 end of that 3rd and stalled out again beginning of 4th. Looking away from
Green and putting everything on Fred just isn’t the answer.

 

A. He’s the best 2 guard on the team.

B. He has the ability to get into the paint.

C. His minutes have been reduced to his rookie year avg.

D. He has been on the bench multiple times in the 4th or in critical situations

E. It’s a team game and there’s plenty of culprits. Did you watch the game and see how Sengun’s defense wasnt good tonight as well as last couple games? FVV isn’t a drive to the paint and finish guy but being asked to on this team. They’re using FVV as if he were Brunson. FVV has always been a facilitator and 3 pt specialist and shouldn’t be a num 2 scoring option on this team. It’s baffling.

F. Green isn’t used properly. For a player with speed and ability to get to the paint you need to put the ball in his hands. He was in the 58th percentile of iso players and had higher shooting foul freq% which was better than players like Lebron, Tatum, Edwards, Haliburton, Trey Young. His iso freq% dropped from 11 last year to 9. A lot of the speedy players in this league play iso (SGA, kyrie, brunson). He is being wasted away in the corner 3 or as a spot up shooter staring at FVV and Sengun. FVV deferred to Siakim as he was one league leaders in iso and Udoka played heavy iso with Tatum in 2022.