Celtics coach Ime Udoka wasn’t happy with his team’s level of composure during Wednesday’s loss to the Heat, writes Brian Robb of MassLive. Amid a playoff-level atmosphere and with first place in the East on the line, Udoka thought his team got too distracted by the officiating.
“We talked about it at halftime. We were complaining a little bit too much, being down one as poorly as we played early and not playing our best basketball,” Udoka said. “We got caught up in that early in the game as some calls late that didn’t go our way and we got caught up in that. We still have to transfer down to the other end and continue to guard, play through it. It’s a physical team that felt like a playoff atmosphere tonight as far as that. We could do a better job with our composure for sure.”
Marcus Smart was ejected after picking up two technical fouls late in the fourth quarter, but a bigger concern is Jayson Tatum, who was called for his 13th technical of the season in the first half. If he gets three more, Tatum will receive an automatic one-game suspension.
“I do not want to have to sit out a game,” he said. “The previous 12 techs, I’ve looked at all of them. I agree with probably 10 of them I deserved, but tonight, I don’t know. That’s the one I got to think about and watch. That was a tough one. I was trying to have a conversation. I was asking questions. It’s unfortunate that I got that tech, but just something that we got to move on from and continue to keep playing.”
There’s more from Boston:
- Wednesday marked the Celtics’ first game with a regular rotation since Robert Williams‘ meniscus injury, per Souichi Terada of MassLive. Grant Williams moved into the starting lineup, but didn’t make an impact, so Daniel Theis played 17 minutes and scored 15 points while making all six of his shots from the field. “Daniel is capable,” Udoka said. “He’s not jumping like Rob, but he’s a lob threat. We know that. However, we got to deliver it. We missed some opportunities, had some turnovers trying to force some passes tonight but Daniel had a great game overall. You can see his growth, what he’s doing the past few games.”
- After a report Wednesday questioning whether the Celtics are fully vaccinated so that all their players would be eligible for a potential playoff series with the Raptors, Al Horford indicated that it won’t be an issue for him, according to Matt Vautour of MassLive. Horford was held out of Monday’s game at Toronto for personal reasons. “We’re clear on that. I’ll be ready to play wherever,” Horford said.
- Derrick White played his 70th game of the season Wednesday night, triggering a $500K bonus, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. White’s cap hit will be adjusted to $16,892,857 for next season, and Boston is now $1.75MM away from the luxury tax for this season.
Kyle Lowry talked the ref into “T-ing up” Tatum
If he keeps whining like he does, a lot of players should be saying that to the refs only way he’s going learn is by sitting out games, same thing happened to boogie
Since ASG and the Harden trade, NBA refs are back to bad whistling … I missed the start of this season when they just let the players play the game …
Worrying about 3 techs this late is kinda silly unless they were to rollover into playoffs which maybe they should
Crazy how the Celtics weren’t tagged in this post.
Also I love Ime’s comments. Now is the time to prep for the playoffs and too many times last night you saw arms raised at the refs instead of playing the game. Games are rigged, everyone gets called for techs for big nothing-burgers, it is what it is… but if you just play the game and control what you can control then maybe you can pull out a W.
Hated Tatum’s antics, I hate Smart flopping and yelling when he doesn’t get a call. The Celtics looked GOOD when they were on, but it seemed too easy to knock them off their flow. Bad calls happen literally every night. How many times does it have to happen before they expect it to happen and plan for it. Sheesh.
Better to have the emotional Celtics than the apathetic team we’ve seen the last couple of seasons. That said they do need to keep emotions in check or it’s going to bite them. Saw similar issues in the KG game a couple weeks ago.
Celtics are still just a bunch of kids that need to grow up. Super talented kids, but immature.
Clearly, the worst technical foul in this game, was the one they gave on Strus.
The refs seems to get worst. I sure miss the excellence of one Joey Crawford.
Celtics have to keep playing as a team, passing the ball around! I mean in the Toronto loss Marcus Smart took all those threes. Seemed he felt he had to do all the scoring. Come on.
Then in the loss to the Heat, Jaylen Brown wouldn’t pass to Pritchard. He’d rather pass cross court. Come on Payton’s proved himself! Brown needs to get a lot better, not only looking to pass a lot more, but on his drives he gets way too many blocked. Stop trying to just bully his way up at the rim, he needs to add some fakes and shiftiness over the off season. To his credit Brown has added that drive to the left side of the basket blocking out the blockers.
Finally Tatum was getting his arms hacked a lot on drives as shown on a number of replays & no calls.
Come on Celtics, keep passing & get Pritchard more three point shots. Go Celtics!
Refs handed the Game to the Heat down the stretch. Turnovers before that didn’t help.
Delighted to see star scorer Jaylen Brown get seven assists against Indiana in the win 128-123. Along with all of his baskets at the hoop. And he made one pass for an assist to three point shooter Payton Pritchard. Critical since, with TimeLord out, our Celts now have to outscore teams to win. Go Celtics!