Celts Call Season Off Early: Toronto 125- Boston 94

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	Like many of us, the Celts breathed a giant sigh of relief as
the end of this disastrous season approached.  Unfortunately, they
didn't wait to exhale, until the actual last game of the season, as
they clearly had their bags packed and loaded in their limos before
the start of this afternoons game.  None of the C's seemed to have any
interest in the game, which was played with no intensity at all, (on
the C's part, that is).
	Actually, though, it seemed as though the Celts might continue
their season long domination of the Dino's (they had beaten the
Raptors in all three previous meetings) early in the game.  The Celts
held leads at 7-2, 17-11 and 28-23.  The Raptors ended the quarter
with an 8-2 run to grab the lead, 31-30r.
	The Raptors picked up where they left off at the start of the
2nd.  The outscored the C's 13-5, to start the 2nd on their way to a
44-35 lead.   The Celt's offense stalled out as M.L. went to the
bench, and the Celts couldn't seem to maintain any floor balance, as
the Raptors struck for many easy fast break baskets.  With the score
at 52-41, the Raptors put together another 8-0 run to push their lead
up to 19 at 60-41.  The Celts did rally slightly to cut the Toronto
lead to 15 at the end of the half 64-49.
	The Celts did make an effort to stay in the game at the start
of the third and at least kept the Raptors from increasing the lead
for the first half of the quarter.  But the Celts couldn't get any
consistency on offense as they continually settled for the outside
shot (Day and Walker, especially).  After the first 6 minutes the
score was 74-58.   Doug Christie led the Raptors on a 13-0 run to blow
the game totally open, as the Raptors assumed an 85-58 lead..  The
period ended with the Celts  trailing 93-66.
	The fourth quarter was pure garbage time.  Early the Raptors
got their lead up to 31 at 102-71.   The two teams traded baskets for
the rest of the quarter, with nary a sign of any defense being played.
The Raptors got their lead all the way up to 35 at 125-90, before the
Celts scored the last 4 points of the game to make the final score
125-94.

Lineups- Celts-Wes, Day, Walker, Conlon, Hamer
                Raptors- Stoudamire, Christie, Williams, Camby, Rozier

Players- Walker- A rather weak game by Antoine.  He settled for the
outside J to often, and his recent success in piling up the assists
seems to have gone to his head.  He tried several passes that were on
the far side of absurd in this game as he  got 6 turnovers.  He scored
21 (7-22), had 7 boards and 5 assists in 41 minutes.

Wesley- Had a tough game against Stoudamire, and was visibly getting
frustrated.  Verbally too, apparently, as he was called for a
technical in the third period.  Scored 15 points (6-10) had 4 boards
and 6 assists in 35 minutes.

Day- Actually ended up the game with 22 points on 8-17 shooting, which
is not basdat all by Todd's standards.  Most of that came in the
second half when the game was out of reach.  In the first half he hurt
the team badly, with inappropriate outside shots.

Conlon- At least he acted like he knew there was a game scheduled for
this afternoon.  He only scored 10 (4-11), but had 14 boards in 35
minutes.

Szabo- a disappointment after his two fairly strong recent outings.
Scored 5 points and had 3 boards in 25 minutes, as he played much of
the game in foul trouble.  He scored his only basket of the game on a
nice alley-oop from Walker.  His lack of physical strength showed as
he was bulled all over the court by Pop-Eye Jones and Reggie Slater.

Hamer- Don't know why he got the start.  Scored 8 points and had 5
boards in 19 minutes.=20

Hawkins-scored 5 points in 17 minutes.  He did play some determined
dogged defense against Stoudamire, and was rewarded by having Damon
throw the ball at him (which the refs let Stoudamire get away with).

Driggers- Apparently was on the court for 20 minutes (I didn't
notice)..  Even notoriously-loyal-to-the-point-of-absurdity Tommy
Heinsohn admitted that Nate may not be able to make it in the NBA.=20

Lister- Might have been Alton final minutes in the league.  It's a
pity that they couldn't have been in a decent contest.

Coaching- I just thought that I would put in a note about M.L.'s
miserable job of coaching in Philly, Friday night.  Tommy was saying
that he thought that M.L. had come back form the flu too early, and
that M.L. admitted, as they got on the plane that night, that he was
feeling rather miserable during the game.
	Along those lines, Tommy was also commenting that he thought
that if Larry Brown came to the Celts he would definitely junk the
running game, would require a major turnover of personal, and would be
a pretty bad choice. =20

The Celts final record for the season is 15-67 (yikes).  Presumably,
their next game will be in early November.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com

P.S. Another season grinds, coughs and stutters to an end.  Tho' I do
feel strangely optimistic about the future fortunes of the team.  I've
had a fine time again this season, and look forward to doing these
reports when the Celtics bring home their seventeenth banner (got it
right this year).  Personally I plan to spend a week or so with M.L.
and Gaston evaluating the past season before plunging into making
plans for next year (can't really do much till they draw the lottery,
anyway).  Thanks to everyone.=20