Celts lose in OT! Again!: Orlando 121- Boston 117

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

"[Magic] Workers of the World Unite!
     You have Nothing to Lose but Your Shaqules"
                             =20
                         F. Engels (A very loose translation)

     Josh Ozersky must be in ecstasy tonight.  For the second game in
a row the Celts went to overtime but lost a eminently winnable game.
The Celts had a chance to take a three point lead with 18 seconds
left, but David Wesley missed a free throw, and the Magic (with the
help of a very dubious call by the refs) tied the game to send it into
overtime.  With 28.8 seconds left in OT, Brian Shaw hit a three to
give the Magic the lead .  The Celts were unable to score again and
lost 121-117.
     It looked in the first quarter as though it might finally be the
night where the Celts won a game emphatically.  After the two teams
traded baskets back and forth for the first half of the period
(13-12), the Celts broke out.  They went on a 19-8 run to take a 32-20
lead at the end of the quarter.  The Celts got great play for Fox and
Walker hit a three.  The Celts had 10 assists in the period.
     More of the same in the second.  Dee Brown came into the game and
made nice drive and dish combo's twice and also hit a couple of J's to
propel the Celts to a 41-20 lead.  The Celts held a twenty point lead
at 47-27, when the Magic realized that they would have to take the
game seriously.  They began to throw some heavy duty defense at the
Celts and dramatically slowed down the pace of the game.  They
outscored the Celts 22-2, over the last 8:00 of the half to tie the
game at 49-49 going into the second half.
     The Celts started the second half with renewed energy and took a
5 point lead at 63-58.   The Celts increased the lead to 73-67, but
the Magic responded with a 11-2 run as the refs sent them to the line
on 5 out of 6 possessions.   The Magic expanded the margin to 5 at
82-77 to end the quarter. =20
     The Celts got treys from Fox and Brown and a fast break jam from
Eric Williams to tie the game at 85-85.  The Magic came back and upped
their lead to 8 at 94-86.  The Celts pulled to within 4 on a great
drive by Antoine Walker (96-92), but both team fell silent after that.
Anderson scored a layup to put Orlando up by 6, but the Celts hit 5-6
from the line to get within 1 at 98-97.  With the score at 103-99,
with 1:30 left, Todd Day hit a three to close the gap to 1 (103-102).
The Celts got a steal and Fox was fouled.  Rick hit both throws to
give the Celts a 104-103 lead.  The Celts held off the Magic in a
crazy possession in which Fox stuffed Hardaway, and Siekaly got
smacked in the nose (after the refs missed him standing in the lane
for an 8 count).  The Magic intentionally fouled Wesley, but Wes
missed one of his free throws.  The Celts led 105-103 with 18.3
seconds left.  Williams was called for a foul on Scott on the next
play (there was a very little contact,  but it's hard to believe that
the refs called it) and Scott hit both throws to tie the game.  The
Celts got a fair shot opportunity for Day with time running out but he
couldn't convert.  Regulation ended with the score at 105-105.
     On the first play of the OT, Szabo (!) fouled Siekaly, who also
hit the basket to give the Magic a three point lead (108-105).  Penny
hit a turnaround on the next Orlando trip to give the Magic a 5 point
advantage.  The Celts came back with 7 straight points (112-110).  Dee
fouled Hardaway and Penny hit the basket but missed the free throw to
tie the game.  On the next Magic trip,  Penny faked Dee out of his
shoes, but missed what would have been a spectacular jam.  After
Strong got the offensive rebound Dee got a measure of revenge, as he
stole the ball away from Hardaway.  Fox got the ball to Walker for a
dunk and  the Celts had the lead.  Nick Anderson responded with a 3
and the Celts were down by 1 (115-114).  With 50 seconds left Seikaly
fouled Walker, who took the hit and threw a looping shot in the basket
one handed (Unbelievable!).  Walker miseed the free throw, but got his
own rebound and got sent to the line again, where he hit one of two
(That's a three point play the very hard way).  The Magic tried to get
the ball to Penny, but Fox played brilliant deny defense.  So Shaw
just straightened up and hit a three over Wesley (118-117 Magic: 28.8
secs. left).  Wes dribbled straight down the court and took a three
straight away.  It was a pretty good shot but it missed.  Fox fouled
Hardaway with 21.5 to go, who hit both free throws to give the Magic a
3 point lead at 120-117.  The Celts tried to set up for a three
pointer, but Orlando shut off the three point line, and Wesley kind of
fumbled the ball over to Fox, who missed a half hook and an offensive
rebound try (either one of which would still have left the Celts down
by 1).  The Celts fouled again, and incredibly (actually not, as Nick
only shoots 34% from the line) Anderson missed both free throws.  But
with 8 seconds left to go and no timeouts left the Celtics couldn't
inbound the ball.  Fox tired to pass the ball to Williams, but Eric
couldn't handle a tough pass, and the game was over except for a
couple of free throws.  The Magic won by a final score of 121-117.
     This was a very even game.  The Celts shot .457 from the field
and .697 from the line, while Orlando was .461 and .743.  The Magic
had a big night from the three point line (13-27), but the Celts
weren't shabby themselves at 8-19.  The Celts had 13 offensive boards
and the Magic had 15 and so on.  The Celts were able to keep the
pressure up till the end of regulation but seemed to sag a little in
the over time.  They just didn't have too much left in the tank.

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Day, Fox, Williams, Walker
         Magic- Hardaway, Anderson, Scott, Strong, Seikaly

Players- Wes- another sound game with 18 points, 7 boards, 8 assists
and 5 steals (43 minutes: which means that Wes got ten minutes off
tonight!).  Shot 6-17, had some serious problems with Penny on defense
and was bothered by some pressure from Darrell Armstrong.

=46ox- Highest scoring game for him of the season at 28.  Shot 10-16
(3-5 on threes), 8 boards, 4 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks in 43
minutes.  Played some wonderful defense.  M.L. had him playing
Hardaway some down the stretch and Fox did quite well (explain to me
how Fox can guard Hardaway and not Stackhouse).

Walker- Really nice game for the rookie everywhere except the free
throw line.  He hit a three, had 10 boards, 28 points on 12-20
shooting (new career high), 4 assists and 3 blocks in 46 minutes.
shot 3-9 form the line.  Even though he couldn't keep Seikaly out of
the paint, and the Celts didn't doubleteam Siekaly much he outscored
Rony 28-22.  The Magic played Seikaly against walker, unlike most of
th4e teams the C's have placed lately.  The Celts tried to run some
isolations for Walker towards the end of the game but they didn't work
out to well.

Williams- 16 points and 11 boards (after a bad start on the boards,
E.W. is averaging 10 a game over the last three).  Shot 5-12 and had 3
assists in 41 minutes.  Took 4 jumpers early in the game but only hit
1 (the one where he went straight up with the ball).

Day- Well, he kept the celts in a couple of games recently so you knew
that some payback was coming.  Todd was 4-15, including 1-6 from 3
land, for 12 points in 34 minutes.  To be honest I thought that the
shots he took were pretty good.  I really had no idea how poorly he
shot until I saw the stats, because I thought that almost all of his
shots had a good chance to go in. =20

Brown- Nice game for Dee.  Shot 4-8, had 11 points and 4 assists in 35
minutes.  Drove to the basket the first couple of times he got the
ball, but wasn't very active offensively after that.  Shot 3-4 from
three point range.

Conlon- 4 points and 2 boards in 14 minutes as he picked up 5 fouls
pretty quickly.  He got a little mad at the refs and got called for a
technical.

Szabo- After Conlon got into foul trouble, Szabo got put into the game
three separate times (a new career high I think).  2 rebounds and 2
boards in 9 minutes.  Actually didn't do to bad a job against Seikaly,
but the refs cut him no slack at all.

Coaches- for the second or third game in a row M.L. moved the players
in and out of the lineup pretty well.  The Celts were fresh enough to
put some pressure on the Magic at the end of the game and do some
running. which is pretty good considering 6 of the players combined
for 240 minutes.
     I read a couple of comments about M.L.'s demeanor on the side
line tonight and while I don't necessarily think that it hurts to have
a coach who cracks a smile a little once in a while, I wonder if M.L.
isn't too easy on the refs.  Hill and Rollins collected T's just after
the start of the second quarter, and all of a sudden the refs began to
call the game much more closely (much to the detriment of the Celtics
who play far more aggressive defense).  M.L. is such a marshmallow
that I wonder if the refs even care what he thinks.

Opposition Players of Note:  Nick Anderson, who was 5-6 on threes and
0-2 from the line (as I mentioned above he's shooting 34% from the
line this season).  Should the celts have been fouling him instead of
letting him take the three's?  34% of 18 is a lot less than 15.  And
is there a form of subtle discrimination against big guys?  I bet that
if there was a center who shot 34% he would get sent to the line every
couple of minutes.

Penny- The Magic have been playing much better since he came back from
the DL.  But Penny didn't play all that well tonight.  Although he
shot 9-17, he had only one assist (the Celts generally didn't double
down on him, so he couldn't pass out for easy assists).  His shot
seemed very good though.

The Celts are now 9-29.  They play again tomorrow evening in Atlanta.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com

P.S. I forgot to mention it, but did anyone catch the  interview with
Julius Erving during Wednesday's game.  Didn't the Doc used to have
some gray hair?

P.P.S.  Got a lot of great comments on last Wednesday's game.  Keep it
up!