‘Awareness and change needs to be made,’ says Celtics coach Ime Udoka in the wake of the Uvalde shooting

The Celtics coach shared he and his former coach Gregg Popovich are of one mind when it comes to the Uvalde massacre and mass shootings more generally.

While Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka is by no means a clone of the man he cut his coaching teeth under with the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant, Udoka is much like Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich when it comes to social concerns and making use of their platform to support ones they believe matter.

And such was the case on Sunday when Udoka met with the media ahead of Game 2 of the 2022 NBA Finals; asked whether he’d heard Popovich’s speech pleading for action on gun control at a fundraiser for the victims of the Uvalde, Texas mass shooting, the Celtics coach admitted he hadn’t.

“But, I know how passionate he is about a lot of these issues,” he said. “And so for me, it’s really something that I spoke about after the Miami (Heat) game.”