Celtics: Ime Udoka refutes Woj bomb about players-only meeting

Celtics head coach Ime Udoka has responded to the rumors about the team's players-only meeting backfiring on them.

The Boston Celtics are not in a great place right now. Marcus Smart recently called out teammates Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown publicly following another disappointing loss and unsurprisingly, Smart's comments have been overly scrutinized by the media.

In an earlier report, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski revealed that the Celtics held a players-only meeting to try and address the elephant in the room. Woj also said that the highly emotional meeting may have not been as productive as expected and that it might not have been very beneficial for the team. Boston head coach Ime Udoka has now spoken out about the rumors as he pretty much refuted Woj's report:

“It wasn’t really a players-only meeting,” Udoka said, via Souichi Terada of Mass Live. “We had a team dinner scheduled way before anything happened. That was planned for some weeks now and we gave the players their time before the coaching staff and everybody else came down.”

Udoka did say, however, that the players had around 30 minutes to themselves before the team's coaching staff joined in on the dinner. So technically speaking, albeit brief, the players were actually able to hold a discussion without anybody else around.

Celtics veteran Al Horford also shared his two cents worth on the now-controversial meeting. Horford also did his bit to try and play down the fallout from the sit-down:

“Gathering, team dinner,” Horford said. “Nice to break bread together, hang out. Most importantly, talked about making sure that we come out here and have a good outing (Wednesday).”

The good news for the Celtics is that they were able to log a much-needed win on Wednesday against the Orlando Magic. Jaylen Brown led the way for Boston with another strong performance, finishing with 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting, five rebounds, and three assists. Jayson Tatum, on the other hand, carried on with his shooting slump. The All-Star forward logged just 14 points on a miserable 4-of-16 from the floor. Despite Tatum's struggles, however, Boston still came out on top convincingly, 92-79.

Marcus Smart was also his usual self on Wednesday, and it didn't really look like there was any beef between the Celtics' stars. For his part, Udoka appears to have also offered some support for Smart amid the backlash he's received following his decision to call out Tatum and Brown:

“Well, the things that he said, some of the things he said, are things we talk about every day. I’ve preached that from day one,” said Udoka, via Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald. “Jayson and Jaylen are guys growing in that area, being playmakers, so, it’s stuff we’re constantly showing on film, talking about, so it’s nothing new as far as what we have shown and done, and they’ve done a great job in those areas. So, Marcus and Jaylen and Jayson have a history together, being together for a long time, and every team I’ve ever been on or coached has had moments where they butt heads. So it’s nothing that we haven’t talked about, nothing, no area that they haven’t shown improvement and growth in, and so we’ll leave it at that. I mean, it’s something that’s addressed and continually preached with those guys and so not trying to blow it out of proportion.”

As Udoka stated above, quarrels between teammates are absolutely normal. Even more so for Smart, Tatum, and Brown, who themselves have been together for many years now. It also sounds like this isn't the first time Smart's issues have been discussed, so in Udoka's own words, it seems like this matter has just been “blown out of proportion.”

Be that as it may, what cannot be denied is that Smart isn't known to be the type to air his dirty laundry in public. He's a veteran and a professional, and he definitely understands that his strong statements against Tatum and Brown were going to make headlines. Perhaps this was Smart's objective all along. Whether or not it pays off, however, is an altogether different matter.