The point out of one thing as innocuous as “player meetings” made Al Horford grimace as if he has simply tasted one thing unsavory.
“I don’t like using the word meetings. The whole meetings thing,” he stated after Wednesday’s follow, momentarily trailing off.
Celtics gamers haven’t been above reaching for the conferences panic lever over the past two seasons.
Ime Udoka, although, has used the players-only session as an empowering system this season. He permits his gamers to speak amongst themselves, after which deliver him and his workers into the assembly.
“One thing I have done this year is had monthly players-only meetings. It’s not always a negative connotation with it,” stated Udoka. “It’s if we’re doing one thing properly, we give these guys quarter-hour, we present them the numbers, the place we’re at over the past month or so. Then I give them quarter-hour to speak amongst themselves, then I stroll again in and, what do you guys received for me?
“We’ve had quite a few of those and I think it encourages leadership and those guys being communicative,” he stated. “We show them where we’re at. These are the things you can improve on, the way guys think, what we could do better as a coach. We’ve had a few of those at the start of the year as well.”
“It was somewhat forced based on COVID situation,” Udoka added. “I think it was beneficial for us to have a lot of one-on-one sessions with guys. Myself and Jayson (Tatum) and Jaylen (Brown) and kind of zeroing in on guys with what we wanted to do. We were forced to do it because we couldn’t do stuff on-court. So that was beneficial for us.”
Horford agrees. He simply hates the phrase.
“I mean — at the end of the day, it’s just, I just think we figured out what we needed to do and how we needed to play and we’re at the point now that we can hold each other accountable,” he stated. “And if guys see something, we can call each other out. I’m not going to make a very big deal out of those things. Is what it is.”
Robert Williams, who hasn’t sat by means of almost as many of those periods as Horford, has been impressed.
“We’ve done it a couple of times, but this is the most I’ve seen people engaged with it, really buying in and everyone getting a chance to voice their opinion, whether it’s a position group or not, just voicing their opinion,” he stated. “People listening, taking stuff into consideration. And I feel like it’s definitely something that’s helped us.”
Getting the rust off
Williams admits that he felt “a step slow” throughout his return to the lineup in Games 3 and 4 of the Nets collection. Few gamers, then, will profit extra from the upcoming break, made potential by a sweep of the Nets.
“Physically, he is fine,” stated Udoka. “The wind I don’t assume was fairly there these final two video games. I stated you possibly can scrimmage all you need, there’s no method to actually emulate that stay sport tempo and motion, and so to get his wind again up shall be large this week. Just get some stay work in the previous couple of days and simply get him constructed again up so he can get again to his regular rotation, lineups, and minutes.
“(The sweep was) big for a lot of reasons. We got four guys that played pretty heavy minutes in that series, so that added rest was good for them and for Rob in general,” he stated. “Low minutes in two games, but we need to get this week some activity and we’ll get a good scrimmage in tomorrow and a big piece of that will be getting Rob back acclimated with everything. So going forward, we want to get him back to his normal position, rotation, minutes and a big part of it is this week, his build up as well; making sure he responds well like he did in the games.”
Williams, in fact, needs higher.
“Just playing,” he stated of the answer. “There’s actually nothing you are able to do to arrange to play within the NBA sport. You can experience the bike all you need nevertheless it doesn’t examine. Just being on the market taking part in, that’s actually it. I used to be attempting to see the place I may are available in and enhance the sport essentially the most, I really feel like that was my key coming off the bench. To simply assist the staff attempt to add to the nice issues they have been doing the entire collection. Like I stated, we received the job carried out.
“I felt like I used to be a step behind defensively, to be sincere. Just knocking the rust off, with the ability to transfer sure methods goes again to the being in form half. Just taking part in in video games is the one factor that may assist.
Captains? Captains?
Though Udoka had thought of appointing staff captains early within the season, his staff clearly doesn’t have a scarcity of leaders in the intervening time. Some issues are higher left alone.
“No, I don’t regret it. It was a focus early on and it didn’t happen,” he stated. “Al and Jaylen were out from the get-go in training camp, and it just became an afterthought honestly. Haven’t thought much about it. Guys lead in different ways. I said coming into it, Marcus and Al were the most vocal, but we needed Jayson and Jaylen to step up in that area, and they did do it in their own way and have grown leaps and bounds this year.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com