Celts Take Out Whiz: Boston

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

  	Last week the Celts lost a game in Miami, that was a debacle
for Pitino's system.  Tonight, we saw the other side of the coin, as
the Celts press sucked the energy out of the Wheezers, and Pitino came
into the game with fresh troops at a critical juncture in the game to
seized control.  The Celts rolled over the Wiz in the 4th quarter,
outscoring them 24-6 over the last 9:17 of the game.

	The Celts opened the game strong with some help from a
surprising source: Andrew DeClercq.  Travis Knight was having trouble
boxing out on the boards and Pitino brought in DeClercq about 1:30
into the game.  He responded on the offensive end with a couple of
baskets as the Celts took a 12-7 line.  The Whiz came back, though and
tied the game at 14-14.  Washington went up 27-22 near the end of the
quarter, but Tyus Edney came in and got the C's a couple of quick
basket to close to within 28-26.

	The Whizzers seems to be taking control of the game in the
second quarter as they slowly built up a lead of 41-35.  The Celtics
were executing fairly well on offense, but missed a lot of easy shots.
Pervis Ellison made a brief appearance as DeClercq and Knight both got
into foul trouble.  The half ended with Washington up 57-52.

	The Wheeze made a strong bid to take over the game in the 3rd.
They took their first double digit lead at 70-60 with about6:00 to go
in the period.    The C's suffered a serious offensive power outage
over the last half of the period as the were only able to score 2
points  over a 4:00 stretch, as the Whiz lead grew to 76-63.   The
Celts made up a little ground, outscoring Washington 6-2 to end the
period trailing 78-69.

	The Celtics seemed to be treading water at the start of the
4th.  With 9:25 to go in the game they were still trailing by 9 at
82-73.  Pitino inserted DeClercq,  Mercer, McCarty and Billups all at
once and it paid immediate results as the Celts scored 8 points in
2:00 to get to within a point at 82-81.  Both teams hit a bit of a dry
spell, but the C's continued to work on defense.  Finally Ron Mercer
hit a pair of free throws to give the C's their first lead since the
1st quarter.  After Howard gave the Weezards the lead back on a short
jumper, Billups and Walker hit consecutive 3's to give the Celts the
lead for good at 89-94.  Washington got to within 3 points (91-88),
but McCarty hit a big jumper and the Celts backed it up with some
strong defense to put the game away.  The final score was 97-88.

	The surprising stat from this game is that the Celtics outshot
Washington .476 to .421.  Despite the Celtic's 17 steals the two teams
took nearly the same number of shots (the Celts took 8 more field goal
attempts but the Whiz took 13 more free throws).  The Celts only shot
4-17 from the three point line, though they came up big down the
stretch.  After being a little sloppy themselves, with the ball, over
the first 3 quarters, the Celts committed just 1 turnover in the 4th
period.

Lineups:
Celts: Billups, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, Knight
Wheez: Strickland, Cheaney, Webber, Howard, Davis

Players:
Walker: Played 47 minutes, and except for shots that as the 24 second
clock was going down, he didn't force a thing.  He scored 23, had 12
boards, 7 assists, 5 steals and 5 turnovers (most in the first half).
Down the stretch he came up very big on defense.

Billups: Nice game for Chaunce.  15 points and 6 assists in 23
minutes.  You could make a good case that he outplayed Strickland, and
certainly kept him under control in the 4th period.  Several nice
drives to the basket in the game.

Mercer: continues to be in a little bit of a shooting slump as he went
5-17.  He scored 13 points, and had 4 boards, 3 assists and 2 steals
in 35 minutes.  For some reason, Ron, who showed such excellent shot
selection early in the season has begun to take somewhat questionable
shots.  They're not impossible, but  they're clearly low percentage
shots for Mercer at this point.

McCarty: Barely played due to foul trouble.  He did hit some big shots
and scored 10 points in just 13 minutes of playing time.  Hit several
sharp looking mid range jump shots.

Knight: not a very good game for Travis.  He had a hard time blocking
people off the boards, and  Pitino limited his playing time
accordingly.  Knight just played 27 minutes, even though he only had 2
fouls.  Scored 7 points and had 2 rebounds.  Travis had to leave the
game with about 2 minutes to go, with a sprained ankle.

DeClercq: Just looked super tonight.  He finally seems to be getting
the hang of the defense, as he picked up 2 blocks and 2 steals in 15
minutes of playing time (I would have sworn he had more than 2 steals
by the way).  All of sudden he seems to be able to anticipate where
the ball in going and step into the passing lanes.  He also was a
dominating presence on the defensive boards down the stretch, and he
picked up 6 defensive rebounds in his 15 minutes.

Bowen: got major minutes again with 33.  He played the usual hard
nosed game, scoring 6, and picking up 5 boards, 3 assists and 2
steals.

Edney: had an astonishing 5 steals in just 15 minutes of playing time.
also scored 8 points.

Minor: Just played 6 minutes, as he seems unable to get good shots
these days.

Jones: Played for ten minutes and scored 4 points.    Made his first
nice play as a Celtic when he hit Knight with a cross court pass for a
short jumper.  It surprises me every time he passes the ball.

Barros: continues in the odd man out role, as the couldn't get any
good shots and went 0-4 in 10 minutes.

Ellison: played for 6 minutes and didn't look any the worse for his
recent stint on the bench.

Coaching:  This has to be a satisfying win for the C's, as compared to
the victory over the Bucks on Wednesday.  It confirms what Pitino has
been preaching since day 1, which is that it is possible to outlast
NBA teams (and not just in the first game of the season).  The Wiz
probably played into the C''s hands a bit, by refusing to do anything
to try to sway the tempo in their favor.

Pitino admitted after the game, that his mass substitution with 9:00
to go in the game owed as much to fouls situations as it did to
masterful strategy.  But there's no reason that the same thing
couldn't happen in a game where fouls didn't artificially keep a
player fresh.



The Celts are now 9-11.  They play Saturday night, on the road against
Detroit.  The Celts are 7-6 at home, but just 2-5 on the road.  A win
in Detroit, might be a little bit of a stretch, but it would be nice
to see them improve the road record.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com