Knicks Knock Celts: New York 112- Boston 99

     Slightly different script, almost exactly the same result.  25
hours (the game in New York started at 8:00 pm) after the Knicks
defeated the Celts by the score of 111-98, they came back and repeated
their punishment of the Green, 112-99 (now, that's consistency).  M.L.
Carr, apparently agreeing with some members of this list, that the
Celtics ran out of gas in the second half of Friday's game, pressed
sparingly, and rested David Wesley in the first half of last night's
game, planning to go to the all out pressure in the second half.  This
resulted in the Celts getting outscored in the first half by ten
points and then playing a very close second half. Chris Childs was
able to play for the Knicks tonight.  Dee Brown started in place of
Greg Minor.
     Both teams started out the game, executing their offenses well.
The game was tied at 15 apiece, with the Celtics exhibiting some of
their nicest ball movement of the season, and Dee Brown getting off to
a hot start with 7 points in the first four minutes.   The C's got out
to a 22-19 lead, but the Knicks came back to take a 23-22 lead when
Carr tried to rest Wesley around the quarter break.  But with Wesley
out the Celts were unable to run any offense and were outscored 4-0
(Carr had to put Wesley back into the game).  The Celts got 4 points
from Todd Day to end the period trailing by a point at 27-26.
     The Celts continued to play well in the second quarter as they
took the lead at 30-29.  They were getting excellent ball movement,
which allowed them to stay in the game, even though they weren't
running much or getting many turnovers.  The Celts held a lead of
40-39 when M.L. took Wesley out of the game again.  The Celts stayed
in the game for about 3 minutes (Minor had 6 points in this stretch),
and only trailed by 1 at 49-48.  But the Celts went cold from the
field (they would only score 2 free throws in the rest of the half),
and the Knicks went on a 11-2 run to take a 60-50 lead into halftime.
All told the Celts were outscored 25-10 during the 8 minutes or so
that Wesley spent on the bench in the first half.
     The grand plan seemed to be coming together early in the third
period.  After a few miscues early in the period the Celts went on a
10-2 run to get within 2 points at 62-60.  Antoine Walker was the key
player in this drive with 2 scores off offenisve baskets and a nice
drive to the hoop for 6 of the Celt's 10 points.  But the Knicks
scored on their next two possessions (66-60) and Walker picked up 3
fouls in the space of 60 seconds.  Carr was forced to put Conlon in
for Walker and some of the air went out of the Celtics' balloon.  They
did manage to get back to within 4 at 71-67, but the Knicks went on a
6-0 run to regain their ten point margin of the half at 77-67.  And
that was the way the quarter ended, with the score at 80-70.  M.L. did
briefly rest Wesley again in the third, but this time there were no
toxic consequences (the Celts couldn't score, but they played good
enough "D" to keep the Knicks from scoring also).
     Early in the 4th period John Starks got hot and led the Knicks to
a 89-74 lead.  The Celts came back with a 12-5 run of their own to cut
the margin to 8 (94-86), as Walker came back into the game and scored
a couple of baskets.  But that was as close as the Celts could get as
they had to score the last 4 points of the game to match Friday nights
deficit of 13 points, at 112-99.  I wonder if two teams have played
back-to-back games before and come that close to duplicating the
results of the first game.
     Although, the scores was nearly the same as the night previous,
the scoring distribution was vastly different as Fox and Wesley (46
pts. Friday) were held to 20, while Walker (23), and Brown (12) upped
their numbers.  Overall the Celts shot better, at .427, but still far
worse than the Knicks at .569.  The Celts had an advantage of 6 in
turnovers (19-13) and an advantage on the offensive boards (15-10)
although the Knicks had an overall advantage rebounding 46-35.  Due to
the Celtics many quasi-intentional fouls the Knicks went to the line 9
more times than the Celts (38-29) even though the Celts actually
committed 1 less foul than the Knicks (25-26).

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Brown, Fox, Williams, Walker
         Knicks- Childs, Houston, Wallace, Oakely, Ewing

Players- Walker- big night for Antoine as he played with tremendous
effort.  He seemed to be going at 45 rpm, while many of the Knicks
were playing at 33 (or to put it into late 20th century lingo, he was
playing at 28.8 bps while the Knicks were stuck at 14.4 (?)).  He shot
9-13 from the field, and 5-7 from the line (and his free throws looked
good!).  He had 9 rebounds (5 offensive) in 30 minutes.  Of course
Ewing had a huge night again with 30 points and 12 rebounds.

Williams- Nice game for Eric also,as he shot 7-14, for 14 points, 3
boards and4 assists in 33 minutes.  Seems much more active than he did
a couple of weeks ago.

=46ox- Shot just 5-16 for 13 points, 6 boards 2 assists and 3 steals in
33 minutes.  And his opposite number for much of the evening, John
Wallace picked up a lot of garbage and scored 19.

Wesley- Played 38 minutes, but with Chris Childs back in the lineup
found the going much tougher.  Had 7 points on 3-8 shooting, 8
assists, 3 steals and 2 turnovers.  But the Celts were lost without
his floor leadership.

Brown- got off to the fast start hitting his first 3 shots and scoring
7 early.  The rest of the game he was horrible, with 5 points on 1-7
shooting.  Again settled for the jump shot.  He and the other celts 2
guards did a good job on Houston for the second night in a row (5-16
from the field).

Minor- got 15 points off the bench, but only shot 5-13, as the Celts
tried to have him post Starks (Minor posting is good in theory, but in
practice in worthless).  Also contibuted 5 boards in 27 minutes of
play.

Day- Played hard, but shot poorly.  9 points on 3-9 from the floor.

Conlon-  Got 21 minutes tonight.  He only scored 4, but seemed to be
taking better shots (he was looking to get open for jumpers, as
opposed to that silly sweeping hook he's been trying).

Szabo- another good looking 2 minutes.  If only he could rebound.

Coaching-  It was nice to see M.L. with a plan tonight.  I still think
that he waited too long in the 3rd quarter to substitute, as Day
didn't come into the game until the C's batteries had run down from
pressing, and Minor didn't get in until the 4th quarter.  Both Ewing
and Wallace mentioned how this reminded them of a college game, with
the Knicks big height advantage, and the Celtics doing the same things
that so many college teams do to compensate for their lack of height
(running and pressing).
     The Knicks had an interesting method of dealing with the Celtic's
press.  Before they inbounded the ball Ewing would position himself
about 8 feet to the right of the basket on the baseline.  If the
Knicks broke the press in good enough shape to attack, they would pass
the ball to Patrick and he would take the 8 footer (not go to the
basket).  If they broke the press, but couldn't get ball to Patrick
before the C's caught up with the play, they would dribble or pass the
ball down the right sideline, Ewing would step away from the baseline
for 3 or 4 feet, and he would automatically have good position in the
post, and the Knicks would have an easy entry angle.  This resulted in
Ewing shooting 10-13.

Old-Timers of Note:  The roster of former Knicks and Celtics
introduced at halftime was exactly the same as on Friday except that
(Still) Senator Bill Bradley showed up and Walt Frazier (who is the
Knick's radio color man) didn't.  The introduction mentioned that
Auerbach and Holzman had coached 11 NBA championships between them,
but didn't mention the 7 chanpionships that the ex-Celtics players
present had also coached (Russell 2, Sharman 1, Heinsohn 2, Jones 2).
Maybe that's because all the Knick's former players have to show is
the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Here are the results of the free throw shooting contest.  Havlicek
took Sharman's place tonight.

          Celts                              Knicks
D.J.       1-2                    Gallitan    1-2   Underhanded
S. Jones   1-2                    King        0-2   Rotund
Havlicek   0-2                    Lucas       1-2
Cousy      2-2                    McGuire     1-2
White      2-2                    Monroe      0-2
Total     6-10                               3-10

     The Celtics won the two combined evenings 10-7 (natch).  Lucas,
Cousy and Jo-Jo all shot 3-4.  White is the only player who looks
thinner today than when he played.  In New York, they announced Cousy
and McGuire together, reminding the crowd that McGuire led the league
in assists once and was runner up to Cousy three times (NYC was big on
point guards even then).=20
     I noticed that Don Chaney was sitting on the Knick's bench (he's
an assistant with them) and I wonder why he wasn't included (as far as
I can tell all the Celtics present had their jersey's hanging from the
rafters and the Duck doesn't).  Which begs the question.

This game makes the Celtic's record 8-25.  They play again on Tuesday
evening, at home against Golden State.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com                   =20
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