Celts Whack! Spurs: Boston 107- San Antonio 83

     And it would have been pretty bad if they hadn't.  The Spurs are
probably even more banged up than the Celts and they didn't have
nearly as much depth to start with.  Plus the Spurs had the dreaded
back-to-back road games, which make even the best teams vulnerable.
So the Celts took advantage (Good for Them) and came up with their 8th
win of the year.
     The two teams played pretty evenly for most of the first quarter.
The Celts, especially Fox were very active on defense, causing a lot
of San Antonio turnovers.  The Celts went on a 6-2 run to end the
quarter with the score 25-20.
     The Celts got some solid contributions from Todd Day and Dee
Brown at the outset of the second period.  They had a 14-9 run to
build the lead up to 10 at 39-29.  The Celts went cold from the field
and the Spurs went on a 10-0 run to tie the game at 39 apiece.  But
the Celts got a run of their own going and outscored the Spurs 12-2,
to take a ten point lead into halftime 51-41.
     In a surprise move, Dee Brown started the second half (M.L. said
after the game that he did it to keep Dee's back from stiffening up).
The Spurs really seemed to be suffering the effects of playing their
second game in two nights at the start of the second.  The Celts ran
their lead up to 18, with an 18-10 run.  They eventually got the lead
up to 22 points at 81-59.  But the Spurs outscored the Celts 6-2 to
end the third period trailing by 18 (83-65).
   Carr tried to pull his punches a little at the start of the 4th (he
sat Fox and Wesley for most of the 4th quarter), but with the Celts
only dressing 8 players, there really wasn't much he could do.  The
Celts went on another 11-5 run to push the lead up to 24 (96-72).
Todd Day got hot and made some nice shots and some nicer passes.  The
game finally ground to a halt, with the score at 107-93.
     The big stat of the game was points off turnover,s where the
Celts got 38 points on 26, while the Spurs scored 15 on 12 Boston
miscues.  23 points difference - 24 point margin of victory.  Because
of that the Celts outshot the Spurs .538 to .457.  And they overcame a
fair size rebounding disadvantage.  The Celts also had a 29-17 edge in
assists. =20

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Minor, Fox, Williams, Walker
         Spurs- Johnson, Maxwell, Monty Williams, Herrera, Perdue

Players- Fox- had a sparkling game tonight.  Scored 19 points on 9-11
shooting, 7 boards, 6 assists, 4 steals and 0 turnovers in 31 minutes.
It doesn't get too much better than that.

Wesley- Must feel like it's the offseason.  After playing only 39
minutes on Saturday, he came back tonight and got 33 minutes.  He
scored 11 and had 9 assists.  He did have some problems dealing with
Avery Johnson on the drive (although Johnson had one of the worst
games of his career with 8 turnovers).

Walker- Nice game for Antoine with 17 points, 11 boards, 4 assists and
3 steals (38 minutes).  He hit a very nice looking three pointer, but
also took some incredibly poor shots.  Interestingly, despite Carr
starting Walker at center, the Spurs chose to play Perdue on Williams
and Herrera on Antoine.  As long as Williams is so weak from the
outside, and Walker is so much quicker than all the fours in the
league we're going to keep seeing things like that.  It really calls
into question whether Walker and Williams can play together.

Williams- Couldn't get the matchup he needed against a smaller player.
Shot 3-9 (9 points) and had 6 boards in 35 minutes.

Minor- Very accurate from the field at 8-13.  He really benefitted
from the running and the turnovers to get some nice looking pull up
jump shots.  He also got the Mad Max matchup (Maxwell shot 5-19).

Brown- Got 28 minutes and had a nice game.  Shot 4-6 (including 2-3
from 3land).  Didn't drive to the basket at all tonight, though.

Day- Actually played rather poorly in the first half.  Came off the
bench, hit a couple of shots, and made a real nice pass to Conlon.
But then he started to turn the ball over and took a couple of unwise
shots.  He played much better in the second half and ended up the game
with 17 points (6-13) in 23 minutes.

Conlon- Probably the only Celtic who actually played poorly tonight.
He did a good job in the last game, playing some of the Suns in the
post, but the Spurs he played tonight, were facing up on him and
driving around him for pretty easy shots.  Marty scored 8 (4 in the
last couple of minutes) and had 4 boards, 2 assists nd 2 steals but
also had a nasty 4 turnovers.

Coaching- You have to give M.L credit.  He didn't try to make this
game out to mean anything more than it really did.  Although he was a
little more upbeat than after the last game, he certainly doesn't
think that the team is facing anything other than a tough road ahead.

This victory makes the Celts record 8-23.  They're playing again on
=46riday in the first game of the throw-back weekend against the Knicks
(hey, that means Walker gets to play Ewing: what's the record in the
=46leet Center?).

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com    =20
    =20