Boston Celtics are looking dominant
After all that Ime Udoka chatter around the league, followed by the organization suspending him, created a little chaos inside of the team, as neither of the players understood exactly what happened and why coach Udoka had to be so harshly punished. Even now, nobody besides those directly involved knows what exactly Ime Udoka did, but the fact that the Brooklyn Nets wanted to take him as their head coach and then dipped out of the deal at the last minute, shows there are some serious reasons behind his suspension.
So, you have your coach gone all of a sudden after a season in which you made the Finals and looked very good overall, just when you thought that things will only go up from that point… how will you react to that? Despite the concerns that the Celtics will be heavily affected by this incident, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown took the team on their back and made Joe Mazzulla feel confident in his role as a head coach (his first such experience in the NBA, as he was an assistant for the Celts since 2019). He was named as an interim coach, but given the fact that Boston is dominating the Eastern Conference at the moment, the chances are high for him to remain in for the entire season on that position. Of course, as I mentioned before, the main reason for all their success is Jayson Tatum, who came back even stronger from last season’s Finals defeat and is looking like a solid MVP candidate (currently in the no. 1 spot in the MVP ladder). Tatum is averaging 30,5 PPG, 8.2 RPG, and 4.1 APG on 48% FG%.
The Celtics are ranked highest on points-per-game, with 120.1, which is not quite a surprise if we also look at the other superstar statistics. Jaylen Brown has 26.7 PPG, 7.1 RPG, and 3.6 APG on almost 50% FG%. Defensively they have to improve if they want to win it all, and this could be the only thing stepping in their way this season (Boston is allowing 112.0 opponent-points-per-game, being the 12th in the league in this category). If they could reduce the OPPG and be somewhere around the top 6 here, we could see them win a ring this year.
