Celts Whip Warriors: Boston 116- Golden State 108

     The Celts got a well deserved win tonight.  It wasn't pretty (the
C's injury situation has gotten ludicrous), but it counts.  The Celts
were without Dee Brown and Greg Minor this evening.  Dana Barros  came
of the D.L. tonight.  The Celts took the opportunity to move Dino onto
the disabled List.=20
     The Celts got of to a cold start and the Warriors took a 11-5
lead.  The C's were playing very well on defense, and they started to
convert some of their steals into points.  The Celts had an 8-0 run to
take a 14-13 lead.  They had an 8-4 run at the end of the period to
tie the score at 26-26.
     At the start of the second, Dana Barros made his first appearance
in quite a while in relief of David Wesley.  He wasn't very effective,
but he did allow Wesley to play some 2 where he pretty well.  The two
teams traded baskets until the Celts got an 8-0 run to take a 6 point
lead at 48-36 (Brent Szabo had 4 of the points).  Off of a couple of
Todd Day 3 points plays (one traditional, one long distance) the Celts
took a ten point lead at 52-42.  The Warriors got the benefit of a
couple of breaks to score the last 6 of the half to pull within 4 at
52-48. =20
     The Celts outscored the Warriors 10-4 to rebuild their ten point
lead (4 points by E.W).  But the Warriors began to concentrate their
offense on Joe Smith (who had been non-existant in the first half),
and the Celts had no one to match up with him.  Smith scored 11 points
in about 5 minutes and got the Warrior to within in 6 at 73-67.  The 2
teams traded baskets for the rest of the quarter.  With the score at
82-75 Walker got tied up and in the ensuing action Donyell Marshall
stepped on his ankle.  Walker was folded up in pain for a few moments,
but came right back into the game and continued playing.  The quarter
ended with the Celts up 82-77.  Joe Smith and Latrell Sprewell
accounted for all but 2 of the Warriors 29 third quarter points.
     The Warriors had cut the lead to 4 at 85-81 and appeared to get
even closer, when Mark Price hit a three.  But the refs took the 3 off
the board calling a travel on Price.  Price was infuriated at the
call.  A couple of moments later David Wesley hit a three to give the
Celts an 89-91 lead and the normally milquetoast Price (claiming that
his shot had been exactly the same as Wesley's) really went after the
refs.  Price was ejected and Dana hit both free throws to give the
Celts a 12 points lead at 93-81.  M.L. tried to play Dana at the point
and Wesley at the 2, but that resulted in Wesley having to guard
Sprewell, who did some serious damage.  On a Sprewell three the
Warriors pulled to within 5 at 105-100.  But Wesley kept finding Fox
for great shots (Fox was 5-5 down the stretch, all on passes from
Wesley),and the Warriors couldn't apply enough defensive pressure to
stop the Celts.  With the score at 110-105 Williams hit a turnaround
from 14 feet to give the Celts the 7 point lead with 45 seconds left.
Joe Smith hit a three with time running out (a practice shot really)
to end the game with the score at 116-108.
     Both team got about the same number of opportunities tonight (the
Celts had 3 more offensive rebounds, so they actually had a small
edge).  The Celts shot .506 to the Warriors .500, but more importantly
got to the line 40 times to Golden State's 25.  The Celts shot a very
nice 6-12 from three point range and stole the ball 13 times.  They
had assists on 27 out of 40 shots.  It's a fair measure of how intense
the Warriors are on defense that the Celtics scored 34 points in the
fourth quarter.  The Celts played pretty decent defense tonight,
without fouling (they only had 21).
=20
Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Day, Fox, Williams, Walker
         Warriors- Armstrong, Sprewell, Mullins, Smith, Spencer

Players- Wesley- 8-12 from the field (2-4 from 3land) and 10 assists
in 41 minutes.  Scored the first 9 points of the period and assisted
on many of the other C's baskets.  Had a tough time with Sprewell down
the stretch, though I'd like to see Wesley try it sometime when he
hadn't already played 35 minutes in the game.

=46ox- Actually had more minutes tonight than Wesley (42-41).  First
time in quite a while that's happened.  It was like he and Wesley were
telepathic in the fourth, as Wesley just kept finding Fox for easy
shots.  Rick had 23 points (8-17), 12 boards, 4 assists and 3 steals.

Williams- Maybe his best game of the year, as the Warriors didn't
really have a big man to cover him except for Spencer.  He shot 9-16,
had 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 5 steals.  Made several jump shots, and
made some sweet moves around the basket.

Walker-  Played hard but had a tough game.  Had 13 boards (that's the
good part) and 12 points (4-10).  He also had 9 (I wish you could
shout numerals) turnovers.  Walker shot poorly form the free throw
line (4-9) and in a harbinger of things to come, Darrell Royal
intentionally fouled Antoine with about 1:45 to go, to put him at the
line.  Walker made 1-2, but Carr kept him on the bench during
offensive plays the rest of the game.

Day- shot 6-13, including 3-4 from 3land, and tallied 18 points, 2
assist and 2 steals in 30 minutes.  M.L. didn't play him much down the
stretch, though he actually did a pretty good job against Sprewell
(who scored 32 but shot 9-22).

Dana- very rusty.  Shot 1-6 and had 4 points, 4 assists and 2 steals
in 21 minutes.  The Warriors don't do defense so he was able to play
the point and feed Wesley for several open shots.

Conlon- Got some good shots from the outside, and got to the free
throw line 8 times.  Had 11 points and 2 boards in 23 minutes.  Got
killed by Joe Smith in the second half.

Szabo- Played 8 minutes tonight.  Got 6 points, 3 boards and a block
(hey, that's pretty good if you pro-rate it out to 35 minutes or
so...).  He had a very nice turn-around-jump-hook over Smith in the
first half, but topped that with a pretty spectacular
put-back-monster-dunk off a David Wesley missed jumper in the third
quarter.

Coaching- M.L. did a pretty good job with the substitutions tonight.
He even got Wesley off the floor for about 30 seconds in the second
half.  I thought that he took a long time to concede that he needed to
double Smith once he got going in the second half.  And I still don't
understand why he wouldn't play Day during the 4th quarter.

Opposition Players of Note- Joe Smith- when Smith came out of college
I thought that he would be a big time rebounder, but that his offense
might take a few years to mature.  Well tonight, Joe scored 33 (28 in
the second half) and had 6 rebounds (2 offensive).  he scored his 14
baskets about ten different ways (including a three) and looked as
though, if the Warriors cared to get him the ball, he could have
gotten 70.  Has a bunch of different shots and understands how to get
himself free for good shots.  But how do you explain those rebounding
numbers?

This victory makes the Celts record 9-25 (gulp, the #1 percentage
drops a little further).  They get the Heat at the Fleet center on
Thursday.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com=20