During that time, did you see anything about defense that was changing or even slightly different from when you were in Boston?
I would say it’s a copycat league. A lot of teams, as they finish with smaller lineups, the defenses do the same thing. You’re trying to find more switchable guys. Obviously, it’s a luxury if you can have a five man you can keep out there that can punish them on one end but switch and guard on the other end, especially when teams go to small lineups. In general, a lot of the switching is giving teams trouble. We try to make teams beat us one-on-one and take them out of their original sets and plays. You try to figure out, more so thinking offensively, how can we attack these switches that teams tend to do at the end of games?
What were the early days in the Bahamas like before training camp, laying down the foundation of what you wanted to see from a defensive standpoint?
Just not skipping any steps from Day 1. Based on our last three years, I’m not going to treat guys any differently and cut any slack or sweep anything under the rug. We had those conversations early where we needed to get better and we needed to expedite the process. We’ve added some veterans. We have a new philosophy and some different styles of coaching. Now, we want guys to buy in. I said in my press conference, youth is not an excuse. If you make a mistake, I’m not going to sweep it under the rug because you’re young and you can make the same mistake over and over and over. They understood that from Day 1, and that’s just who I am. But to everybody’s credit, they’ve grasped everything we’re trying to do. We’ve really improved, but obviously we’ve got a ways to go, and we can get a lot better. That’s the great thing for this group — to see how much we can still improve.
The situation with Ime and the Celtics will never not piss me off. Truly one of my big “what ifs” in regards to this team. Our season with Ime was so promising bc he seemed to be breaking the bad habits of our core players, the same bad habits that have been holding them back for years. I think a lot of people underestimate how big of an impact coaching has, after watching Brad Stevens take teams after team of rookies and nobodies on deep playoff runs, I am not one of those people and that’s why I thought ime was the perfect guy for us, could develop schemes that play to the team’s strengths, like Brad did, but could also manage the egos involved, something Brad struggled with. I’m still not sold on Mazzula tbh but I think it’d be a bad look to fire him simply bc of continuity.
Ime Udoka: Sexual Harassment, infidelity and lessons from getting fired for being a big weirdo.
In kinda curious about his cussing out players and demeanor as his career goes. “mf-ing” players has usually had a short life span. Scott Skiles could “mf” a team to 40ish wins for 2-3 seasons before getting tuned out and that was a generation ago. How long does this generation of player tolerate getting put on the spot.