Celts Broadside Clippers: Boston 99-LAC 77

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts evened their seasons record at 12-12, with a
scripted decimation of the Clippers.  For the first three quarters,
the game was played quite evenly: at times it seemed that the Clippers
were the better team.  But everyone at the garden (including Bill
Fitch, I think) seemed to know that the 4th quarter would belong to
the Celtics.  And it surely did, as the C's held the Clippers to just
7 points over the first 9 minutes of the period, while scoring 24
themselves.  Pervis Ellison and Dante Jones were placed on the injured
reserve list just prior to the game, and Dee Brown and Roy Rogers were
activated.  Dana Barros started the game at the point.

	For the second game in a row the C's toyed with our emotions
to start the game by jumping out to a 11-2 lead.  But the Clippers
rallied, and the C's offense cooled off.  With the score at 17-10, the
Clippers went on a 10-0 run to take a 20-17 lead.  The quarter ended
with the score at 20-19.

	The Clippers managed to maintain that slim lead for most of
the 2nd quarter.  Finally, with about 4:00 to go, Dana Barros hit a
jumper to give the C's a 40-39 lead.  The Clippers suffered a series
of minor accidents during the 2nd quarter that sent Derrick Martin,
Rodney Rogers and Lamond (or is it Tracy)  Murray to the locker room
for brief stints.  For a while it looked as though the Clippers might
run out of players (but all returned for the 2nd half).  The half
ended with the score tied at 46-46.  In general the Celts press helped
keep the tempo of the first half fairly high, but also gave the
Clippers a number of easy baskets.  Roy Rogers made his debut as a
Celtic towards the end of the 2nd quarter.

	Once again the Clippers seemed to be slightly outplaying the
C's at the start of the 3rd quarter.  They slowly opened a 5 point
margin at 60-57.   At this juncture, it just seemed like it was time
for the Celts to step up the pressure.  The Fleet Center crowd really
got behind the team, and the Celts responded with an 8-0 run to take a
63-64 lead, with Billups making a nice contribution.  The Clippers
revived temporarily (and for the last time) to take back the lead at
64-63.  With the clock running out on the quarter, Antoine Walker hit
a dramatic 3 to give the C's a 66-64 lead.

	The C's really turned up the defensive pressure at the start
of the 4th, turning the Clippers over on 3 of their first 5
possessions.  Meanwhile the Celts were doing a much better job of
converting those turnovers into scores as they assumed their first
double digit lead of the evening at 76-66.  Pitino kept shuttling his
players in and out, and it seemed that everyone he put in responded
with the same fierce commitment to defense as the Celts held the
Clippers to just 2 baskets over the fist 9:00+ of the quarter.  On one
possessions in the middle of the quarter (C's up 82-68) the "D" was so
intense that the Clippers were retreating towards midcourt as they ran
their offense.  Rogers ended up taking a 35 footer just to avoid a
shot clock violation.  The Celts lead got as high as 90-71, before
Pitino called of the dogs.  There were a few minutes of semi-garbage
time before the game ended with the score at 99-77.

	The Celts played marvelous defense in this game, holding the
Clippers to .378 shooting, turning them over 26 times and holding them
to just 9 offensive boards (fewer than Lorenzen Wright had in their
previous game).  The Celts offence was just average as they shot .449
including 4-14 from three point range and just .652 on free throws.
The best Celtic offensive stat of the night was that they committed
just 13 turnovers (and Walker had 6 of those)which allowed them to
attempt 15 more shots than the Clippers.

Lineups: 
Celts: Barros, Bowen, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Clippers: Martin, Barry, Murray, Wright, Vrankovic

Players:
Barros/Billups: For reasons that are still a little mysterious to me,
Pitino seems to have decided to dump Edney and go with Barros and
Billups in a 2 man point guard rotation.  You can't argue much with
the results as they combined for 28 points (12-22), 7 boards, 8
assists, 4 steals and just 1 turnover.  Chauncey actually fouled out
of the game, sometime during the closing moments.  They both continue
to play strong defense, as the Clippers 2 points guards scored just
13.

Walker: Despite the nice score, this was in many ways a brutal game
for Antoine.  He shot 8-25 from the field (1-5 on threes) and
committed 6 turnovers.  As a matter of fact, the rest of the team shot
50% from the field and only committed 7 turnovers in the game.  Toine
did do a nice job on the boards, with 15 and helped to limit Wright to
just 3 offensive rebounds.  Initially, Bill Fitch had Murray guarding
Walker in the post without any help, and I thought that Walker was
going to have a big night.  But I guess Fitch is right in thinking
that Antoine hasn't shown enough consistency to deserve the double
team yet.

McCarty: had 5 points in the first 2:00 of the ball game and that was
1/2 his total for the game.  But he did come up with 7 rebounds, and
played the usual solid defense.

Bowen: continues to do nice things.  Had 9 points, 6 boards, 3 assists
and 2 steals in his 26 minutes of playing time.  I've begun to wonder
why Riley couldn'd find any playing time for Bruce last year?

DeClercq: Apparently came into the game under the orders not to commit
any fouls.  He didn't (well he had 2 in 24 minutes, but for Andrew
that's pretty close to none), but it seemed to make him very cautious.
He scored 4 points, had 4 boards and 3 blocks in his 23 minutes.

Mercer: Early on he shot the ball poorly, but came back in the 4th
quarter with some nice jump shots and ended up hitting 6-12 on the
game.  He's still trying to hit jumpers where his feet aren't set
before he goes up and it's hurting him.  He scored 14 points and had 3
steals in 27 minutes.

Thomas: John is a bit of a plodder, but he's fundamentally sound.
Tonight he had 4 points, 4 boards and 3 steals in 17 minutes.  He also
does a good job boxing out.

Minor: Got 4 points in 10 minutes and continues to hustle on "D".

Brown: Played for just 1 minute (at the end of the 2nd half).  I'm not
sure why Pitino didn't get him into the game in the 4th quarter just
to help reacclimate him.

Rogers: Played for 4 minutes and scored 3 points, had a board and a
block.  He wears a heavy brace on each knee, and doesn't seem to run
all that well, though he appears to be a nice defensive player in half
court.  Might be of use against some of the real good offensive power
forwards, thought you have to wonder about him on the press.

Edney: DNP

Coaching: I would be interested to know how much the Celtics practiced
over the last few off days.  For the first time, after a break, it
didn't look as though the coaching staff had introduced any new things
to them.  The Celts looked just about the same as the last time they
played (well, a little better rested).  I wonder if Pitino thinks that
he's taught these guys about as much as they can absorb right now, and
that the rest of their improvement for the season will have to come
from experience.

	Travis Knight will be coming off injured reserve pretty soon,
and it'll be interesting to see who goes on injured reserve in his
place.  You would think that with 7 guards on the team, it would have
to be one of them, but it's a little hard to say which one.

The Celtics are now 12-12 (9-6 at home).  They host the Hornets this
Tuesday.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com