Midway through the third quarter, with the visiting New York Knicks making a serious run and the Boston Celtics collapsing under their own lead, Ime Udoka called a timeout. Instead of drawing up a play or making sweeping substitutions, he lit into his team, letting them hear it after squandering a 15-point halftime lead. The Knicks had played poorly to start the game, and the Celtics seemed to know it. They let up; Udoka said they “got cute.”
“I was livid, honestly,” the Celtics head coach said of the bench discussion. “We talked about what we did well in the first half, came out and did the opposite, for the most part.