Kings Edge Celts: Sacramento 111- Boston 105

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

     	The Celts played solid basketball for all of the game,
excepting the first 8 minutes of the third quarter.  In those 8
minutes though, the Kings outscored them 27-8 to take a 15 point lead.
The Celts fought back, gamely, and got to within 3 points, with just
1:25 left in the game.  But they couldn't stop the Kings on defense
when it counted and they went down to defeat for the 11th game in a
row.  This was the first victory for the Kings franchise, in Boston
since they were in Kansas City.
     	The Celts got off to another relatively strong start,
especially Eric Williams, and jumped out to a 12-8 lead.  The Kings
scored 10 in a row (5 by Richmond) to take an 18-12 lead.   The Celts
retaliated with a 12-0 run of their own to regain the lead at 24-18.
The first quarter ended with the Celts up 29-25.  Fox and Williams
each scored 11 points in the period, but the Celts were giving up a
lot of easy baskets to the Kings.
     	Both teams played very  poorly in the second  quarter, as the
tempo dropped and each team committed too many fouls and turnovers.
The two team traded baskets throughout the period, with neither team
getting much of an advantage.      Mitch Richmond hit 1 of 2 free
throws to give the Kings the lead with just seconds to go in the 3rd
period, but Walker drove the ball down the lane and hit Wesley for a
wide open three with the buzzer sounding to give the Celts a 50-48
lead at the end of the 1st half.
     	Early in the third period, Szabo hurt his shoulder in
rebounding action and was forced to leave the game.  Richmond was on
fire from behind the three point arc at the start of the third as he
hit 3 treys in the first 4:00 minutes of the period.  The Kings had
grabbed a 60-54 lead when Carr decided to substitute Day for Fox in
hopes of slowing Richmond down.  It didn't seem to do much good as
Richmond continued to bomb from the outside.  Meanwhile the Celtics
couldn't get any good shots as they were settling for jumpers
(especially from Walker and Williams).   The lead got a high as 75-58.
Carr put Fox back into the game and Rick hit a three and then began to
push the ball up the court quickly and get the Celts some easy shots.
Behind Fox's play the Celts went on a 6-0 run to pull  to within 11
(75-64).   The quarter ended with the margin the same at 82-71.
     	The Celts continued to battle back, and scored the first 4
points of the 4th, to cut the lead to 7 at 84-75.   Although the Celts
were doing a much better job of containing Richmond, they were losing
control of their defensive board and were unable to stop Tyus Edney's
penetration.  The Celts got the lead down to 6 several times, but
weren't able to close any more than that.    With 2:50 left, David
Wesley, who shot the ball very well down the stretch, hit a jumper to
get the Celts to within 6 again at 102-96.  After the Celts stopped
the Kings from scoring, Todd Day made a huge mistake as he took a 5
second call,  without trying to call timeout, and the C's lost  the
ball.    Edney missed a jumper on the next King's trip and Fox hit a 3
to cut the lead to 3 at 102-99 (1:25 left).   Edney broke down the
Celts defense again on the next play and Day was forced to foul
Polynice to give the Kings a five point lead.    The Celts set up the
next play for Antoine Walker to drive to the basket, but Walker's shot
was weak and fell short.  Billy Owens hit a free throw, to push the
Kings lead back up to 6 (105-99) with 40 seconds left.  All the Celts
could do now was to foul, and the Kings hit their free throws.  The
final score was 111-105.
   	Per usual the Celts were outshot from the field, .522-.463.
They got hurt even more, from behind the arc where the Kings were 9-11
(Richmond was 7-7).  The Celts did do a decent job on the boards,
while they were outrebounded by 6 (42-36), they did get 2 more
offensive boards, 13-11.  They also caused the Kings to turn the ball
over 19 times, while the C's just had 12, but the Celt's did a poor
job of capitalizing on the turnovers.   Wesley, Walker, Williams and
=46ox all scored 20+ in the game, but none of the other Celts had more
than 7 (Conlon).=20

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Fox, Walker, Williams, Szabo
                 Kings- Abdul-Rauf, Richmond, Owens, Smith, Polynice

Players- Fox- although Richmond scored 38 points, Rick really didn't
do that bad of job of guarding him.   Take away the first 4 minutes of
the third quarter, when Mitch hit 3 threes, and the game was pretty
much a standoff between the two.    I think that Fox was giving
Richmond plenty of room on the outside, in hopes of keeping Richmond
from driving around him,  In fact, though, once Fox started trying to
deny Mitch the ball, it turned out that he couldn't drive around Fox
anyway.  Fox had a strong night on the offensive end himself, with 25
points (8-11 from the floor),  6 boards, 7 assists, 2 steals and 4
turnovers.  He really got the team back into the game late in the
third period, with hustle and determination.

Wesley- David's best shooting game in quite a while (especially when
Edney was guarding him), as he scored 23 on 10-17 shooting.    Had
just 5 assists and 1 steal in 46 minutes.  Had a lot of trouble
keeping Edney under control.

Walker- One of the benefits of going to Szabo in the starting lineups
had been to get Walker matchups against smaller players (Billy Owens
and Kevin Gamble guarded him most of the this evening).    You might
think, that under those circumstances he would try to get his offense
down low and off the offensive boards.  Instead, Walker continues to
go to the  jumper more and more, and as he does so, goes to the
offensive boards less and less.  Scored 24 points tonight but was 8-23
form the floor (several very bad jumpers: although he did hit a
couple).  Had 9 rebounds (only 2 offensive), 3 assists and 2 steals in
46 minutes.

Williams- Got off to a tremendous start with 11 points on 5-6 shooting
in the first quarter.  He was turning Michael Smith (who seems to be a
rather poor one-on-one defender) inside out.  The Kings adjusted, and
started to double down on Eric after he started to dribble.  They
would just swallow Eric up so he couldn't shoot effectively or pass
the ball back out.  Williams ended the game with 20 points (6-14), 4
boards and 4 assists in 45 minutes.

Conlon- had the usual hustle game with 7 points and 7 boards in 21
minutes.  Didn't have his jumper tonight.

Day- Only played 18 minutes tonight.  He somewhat mysteriously picked
up a technical in the third quarter, and M.L. pulled him out, and
didn't put him back in until there were only about 4:00 left.  scored
4 points, (2-6), 3 rebounds, and 3 turnovers.

Szabo- 0 points and 2 boards in ten minutes.  No word on the severity
of his injury.

Lister- 2 points and 3 boards in 12 minutes.

Hamer- played too.

Coaching- The lineup switch continues to have interesting effects.
Carr virtually refuses to play Wesley, Day, Fox, Williams and Walker
on the court at the same time (about 4 minutes tonight).  I wonder if
he got some static about playing Walker at center so much (maybe
Antoine threatened to play in Greece next year if M.L. kept it up).
In any case, it seems to have set the team back in terms of their
coherence.  While it has gotten Williams (in particular), some better
matchups, it seems to have hurt Walker and Fox.  And of course the
move has taken 15-20 minutes a game away from Day and given them to
Szabo, Lister and Hamer (a combined 2 points and 6 boards in 24
minutes). =20

This game makes the C's record 11-44.  The Celts face the Pistons on
=46riday night, at home.  Sportschannel is going to stage another one of
their experimental broadcasts, replete with e-mail feedback (now
please don't get violent).

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com
 =20