Ime Udoka and the Boston Celtics clinched an NBA Finals appearance on Sunday night with a Game 7 win over the Miami Heat
The Boston Celtics earned their shot to face the Golden State Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals, and Nia Long couldn’t be happier.
The Friday actress posted a video of her dancing as the Celtics, coached by her fiancé, Ime Udoka, squeezed out a victory over the Miami Heat on Sunday night to win the NBA’s Eastern Conference Championship.
“Yes!!!” Long wrote in the caption of the video, which has received nearly 2 million views on Twitter as of Monday night.
Both Udoka, 44, and Long, 51, share a 10-year-old son, Kez Sunday Udoka.
Yes!!! pic.twitter.com/uW96N1EEqg
— Nia Long (@NiaLong) May 30, 2022
The Celtics won Game 7 of their series against the Heat with a final score of 100-96. Boston’s Jayson Tatum was named the Eastern Conference Finals MVP.
Udoka, who is in his first year as Boston’s head coach, told Yahoo Sports that he feels confident his team can put up a fight against Stephen Curry and the Warriors in the NBA Finals.
“We’ve been who we’ve been all year and our defense travels well and carried us through the playoffs,” he said.
“We’ve played Golden State well this year. We blasted them at their place, had a tough loss at our place early in the season,” he continued. “And so it’s a new series. We know who we are and the things we do well, so we’re confident in that.”
The 2022 NBA Finals will begin Thursday with the Celtics traveling to San Francisco to face the Warriors.
Long and Udoka have been engaged for almost a decade. Long told Essence in 2020 that they are comfortable not holding a wedding ceremony.
“Love is complicated, let’s just start there,” Long said. “And then you start a marriage, which I’ve never been married. And there’s a reason for that because I don’t know that I need to say ‘I do’ to prove to you that I love you.”
“But also, what does marriage really [mean]… that you own me now and I own you?” she added. “I don’t get that part.”
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