Romeo shows Magic
Late three enough to top Orlando
Ime Udoka wants more unselfish play and, initially anyway Monday night, the Celtics coach got a lot of turnovers from the ensuing over-passing by his new team.
CELTICS NOTEBOOK
He had to convince Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart and Dennis Schroder to stop taking his message so literally.
“They were trying to be too unselfish,” the Celtics coach said after Romeo Langford ’s 3-pointer with 13.8 seconds left gave Udoka his first exhibition win as a head coach, 98-97, over Orlando.
“I had to tell them in the first two timeouts to take the shots when they were there. Guys that have been aggressive their whole careers were passing up open shots,” said Udoka. “They listened to me too much, tried to be unselfish and passed up open shots, so we told them to be aggressive. Dennis and those guys started moving it and passed up some shots. We talked to them at halftime, told them let it fly, this is what the preseason is for, to get your legs, so when you have an open shot take it. We know we won’t shoot 35% again.”
The Celtics, in this early work-in-progress phase, have a sloppy bent that was very evident, though they’d gladly take most of the misses in their 35.2% (32for-91) performance again. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t the big stars — familiar and new — who pulled this one through, but instead the leaders of their summer league team.
Led by Langford, Aaron Nesmith and Payton Pritchard in the fourth quarter, the Celtics rallied on the strength of a bench unit that also included Enes Kanter and Josh Richardson.
Jaylen Brown kicked the night off by scoring 20 of his 25 points in the first half on 6-for-10 shooting, and Tatum, with 11 over that stretch, finished with 18 points after coming back with a strong seven-point third quarter.
Rob Williams (one point, 0-for-7) unveiled a midrange jumper that didn’t fall, Richardson was 1-for-8 from the floor and Schroder, though off the mark with his shot (six points, 1-for-7, four assists), displayed a familiar knack for creating chaos with his aggression with the ball.
It was Langford, though, who found the mark after sitting out the first three quarters of the game.
“Really just make the most of the opportunity I had,” said Langford. “Coach put me in the fourth and I played my game and luckily had a chance to hit a shot for the win. I just made the most of it.”
It’s all in the wrist
Though he pretended not to understand his questioner later, Brown blew kisses to the Celtics bench after hitting his first 3-pointer of the night, he was so happy to be back in action after a summer spent recovering from left wrist surgery.
“The game, when you’re forced to watch it, when you’re forced to look at it from different angles, the game just looks different for me now, in a sense,” said Brown. “I don’t know how to describe it. It just doesn’t look the same. I spent a lot of time watching, watching the playoffs, watching film during the offseason because I couldn’t. I was sidelined. But now that I’m back, the game definitely feels different, but in a good way.”
And with the exception of some momentary pain after absorbing a hit on his wrist Monday night, the joint feels fine as well.
“It held up pretty good,” he said. “At times it bothered me a little bit. But I’m moving in the right direction. I’m still like 80 to 85% but as the season goes on and I’m staying on top of my routine, it’s going to get better. So today was a good test.”
Garden party
From his playing career to time as an assistant with San Antonio, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, Udoka has always heard the worst a Garden crowd has to offer.
But when he stepped back onto the parquet for his first game as head coach of the Celtics in Monday’s exhibition opener against Orlando, Udoka was prepared for an entirely new feeling.
“It’s probably the most excited I’ve ever been for a preseason game. I can say that,” said Udoka “The fact that the fans are back is a big thing. Last year in our Brooklyn series was the first time they had fans in the building here and you could feel the excitement. So although it’s just a preseason game for us, we do have new coaching staff, new personnel and we want to kind of get that jelling pretty quickly with only four games to play. So it’s a good vibe, we’re happy to get to playing against someone else, some different coverages than what we’ve been seeing in training camp. So I think the staff and players are both looking forward to it.”