The Boston Celtics are in a deep hole against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, trailing in the series 3-0, and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that the Celtics' downfall could relate to the dismissal of head coach Ime Udoka last offseason.
“This team, this locker room, they never got over Ime Udoka's dismissal as head coach,” Adrian Wojnarowski said on ESPN, via Souichi Terada of MassLive.com. “These players did not accept the organization's reasoning for doing it. They thought it was a wild overreaction. There were a lot of people on the outside who thought it was an overreaction, it was an HR matter.”
Joe Mazzulla took over as head coach, and has been under scrutiny from Celtics fans, especially after falling down 3-0. Wojnarowski said the Celtics accepted Mazzulla, but there were some answers that the players did not get regarding Udoka's dismissal.
“I think with this team, and talking with management, they never got the answers, they never got anymore answers than the public was getting on this,” Wojnarowski said on ESPN, via Terada. “That doesn't mean they haven't accepted Joe Mazzulla as head coach. But this is a team that really believed in Ime Udoka, had a strong connection with him. I think there were a couple instances this season where a lot of that angst resurfaced. First, when the Brooklyn Nets nearly hired Udoka as head coach and then when the Rockets did.”
It will be intriguing to see how the Celtics play in Game 4 against the Heat with their season on the line on Tuesday night.
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