Ime Udoka benches starters, criticizes lack of competitiveness in loss to Warriors 2/13/2025

This has been by design. Alp has said many times that he purposefully defers + tries to get his teammates involved in first half.

 

I am super curious how MDA weaponizes 2 two's are worth more than 1 trey offense. Everyone knows that D'Antoni is an offensive savant, creating some of the greatest offenses in multiple eras of NBA, he'd maximize current offensive efficiency overnight.

7 seconds or less Suns + Harden centric offense could not be more different.

 

No chance that will happen.

Fred VanVleet, Jabari Smith, Tari Eason added Full Time during the Playoffs. It will only excel.

Aaron Holiday, Nate Williams, Jeff Green, Jock Landale impressive minutes.

The Rockets have a Deep, Talented Roster.

 

People here just want to be blame someone instead of accepting the reality which is this team just isn't even close to being there yet.

It was a miracle we were holding the 2 seed in the West before injuries derailed us. If we are being honest, Sengun only made the all star team because of our team record - we truthfully don't have an all star on this team right now. The team is young and full of bad shooters. We don't have a star we can go to when we need a bucket during offensive droughts or late game situations. Yet, we have people here constantly complaining about the coach that has us overachieving.

 

Got curious on why the reporter had 11 game number. Looks like 11 games are all the games within the last three calendar weeks. If counting the 12th, then it goes into the 4th week.

Instead of any narriatives on the slippage, last 10 is a good number. Team is playing bad in Feb. Everyone can agree on that.

 

That wouldn't be the case if Ime took responsibility for a loss once in a blue moon.

You can't bank on your players to grab 20+ offensive rebounds to win games on a nightly basis and then complain about their effort when they don't.

 

Yeah!
7-second run-and-gun offense alternating with 24-second crushing, suffocating defense, for 48 minutes.
I say go for it!

 

yeah because MDA ran 7sol with harden...

MDA is very good at putting players in the best position to be officient. With nash and them it was 7sol, with harden it was iso. He is as much an offensive genius as Ime is a defensive guru

 

Rick Adelman was better than both of them

DD

 

MDA has to be in his mid 70’s at this point and there isn’t a lot of offensive talent to work with. Maybe he would be interested- but I would think MDA would want a team that has shooters, creators and finishers… Rockets have a few serious holes offensively.

 

Mike Dantoni isn't helping this team.

 

False.

There is absolutely no reason on earth to compare their current shooting seasons to their Udoka years. The roster has changed and these are laid back champions - that thing they won post Udoka. Brad Stevens took them far too, but it ain't a championship.

So obviously we are comparing those guys the season before, with and after Udoka.

Horford's worst TS% of his career including rookie year is with Udoka.

White got worse as you literally showed. He was a bad shooter under Pop and Udoka. Shot worse under Udoka. You may feel it's too small to matter, but it is 100% true and makes the point the was intended: there was a systemic shooting problem on the Celtics beyond the personnel.

Jaylen Brown was better the following season and even after the midway point after the players confronted him in a team meeting about what's not working. That's why you left out his following season stats (you too @Htown Stros nice try using this seasons 3PT% when you saw his stat sheet). I won't even get into how conniving that you guys left the volumes out, but this is enough to put your claims to rest.

We are not discussing Udoka's defense so I'm not sure why you're bringing record into this, we are only discussing his offense. If we only cared about defense we would have hired JVG who's equally capable on that end and also has Finals experience. If you discount the players saving his ass with rebounding this season, he has always underperformed on TS% and mostly in the first half of any season.

Try harder guys. Everywhere Udoka has gone, most rotation players shoot worse and the defense improves a lot. We've had a one truck pony like that. It's not even controversial, go ask any Celtics fan and they will tell you he's not good at offense.

Why would you be defending this? You don't want him to develop into a coach who can coach offense well? Don't you think it's a little much to ask to have 7 great young prospects, 2 excellent role players and he wants superstars and he needs them all to get the most rebounds and play the most defense and play through injuries? Really? Who needs all that to win? Who had all that?

I know he can do better than this. There are no Pop disciples this bad at offense. Listen if you can't break the defensiveness of just talking about his offense, there's actually nothing to talk about. There's no one saying our record or defense is not good. No one is debating that with you.

 

Okay take their career averages instead and it doesn’t change.

 

What? The effort last night wasn’t good enough and has been less than necessary of late. There is nothing shitty about Udoka calling it out.

Udoka also knows that to win, this group is going to have to play harder and more physical than their opponents.

Of course Udoka and Stone and likely everyone around the Rockets know that the Rockets lack a franchise player and that is a massive disadvantage when trying to win basketball games. This isn’t new information.

As for Udoka, he has a roster that is built for limiting turnovers, rebounding and defending. There are major holes skill wise offensively that limit their upside. When you cannot shoot, you lack dynamic offensive players, you lack an elite creator and have streaky players - you aren’t going to magically make them a good offense.

Udoka took the Celtics to the Finals. If he had kept his dick in his pants, he would still be the coach in Boston.

The Rockets are like a +5 with Udoka coaching this group and that’s impressive considering all the roster limitations.

The Rockets front office is waiting to see if anyone steps up with opportunities AND waiting for the right caliber of player to become available in trade.

 

Has Ime tried clapping his hand twice in succession and saying “let’s go”?

 

What do you want him to take responsibility for? You realize that his mentality has gotten them to the record they currently sit at right now?

I’ll say it again…there’s not another “good” team in the league that has poor shooters AND doesn’t have a star (an efficient go to scorer) that can get you buckets to keep you in a game or at the end of them.

 

Generating +20 OREB absolutely integral to Ime offensive success, as much if not more than FTA, fastbreak points + defense to offense. Very similar to how Rockets needed to lead in FTA + hoist 50% of shots as 3PA during Harden era.

 

Ime hand clapping + McHale hand clapping are not the same.

 

He would help more than he hurts it that is more than obvious.

 

I want him to take responsibility for the abysmal offense this team runs (or doesn't run).

Exactly. Thanks to the efforts of the players Ime is ******** all over after every loss. Crashing offensive boards doesn't really take HOF level coaching.