Ime Udoka might be one of the proudest men in the world at this moment, his Boston Celtics have done what many considered impossible and swept the Brooklyn Nets. While it’s just the start of the playoffs, the Celtics have announced themselves as a serious contender and a threat to make it to the championship.
This is vastly different from the conversation swirling around the playoffs at the end of the regular season. The Nets were widely expected to be a horrible matchup and teams were expected to try and avoid facing them in the first round. The Celtics took the challenge head-on though, securing the 2nd seed and taking on the Nets in a way that sees them become the only team to wrap their series up in 4 games.
And Udoka has now spoken about the mindset the Celtics had in hindsight, defiantly explaining that they were never planning on running away from anyone in the playoffs (via Mass Live).
“We understood it’s the playoffs and we’re going to have to play really good teams regardless,” Boston coach Ime Udoka said. “We’re a basketball team, not a track team. We’re not running from people.”
“We talked about doing it the way we wanted to do it, which was letting the chips fall where they may, not trying to avoid or manipulate anything,” Udoka said. “When you see other teams that weren’t doing it that way, I think the message that I sent to our guys was that we wanted to play well toward the end of the season.”
The Celtics will now probably face the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs if the Bucks can finish their series off against the Bulls in Game 5. The longer that series drags on, the better it would be for the Celtics but looking at their attitude, they’ll be ready for whatever they face in the coming series.
