Hawks Knock off Celts: Atlanta

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

    The Celts lose another close one.  They've now lost the last 3,
despite having a chance to tie or take the lead in the last minute of
the game.  Coming off the back to back schedule the Celts seemed to be
a little less energetic than usual.  The Hawks handled what pressure
the Celts did generate pretty easily, and calmly went about their
business.  Alton Lister made a cameo appearance this evening.
     After both teams went scoreless over the first minute of the
game, the Celts went to Eric Williams, who was once again being
guarded by the oppostion center (Dikembe Mutumbo in this case).
Williams got the ball about even with the free throw line and drove
hard to his right.  Mutumbo fouled.  M.L. put his quarter in the
machine again and got the same result as Mutumbo picked up his second
foul in the span of 10 seconds.  Wilkens took his big guy out of the
game.   The game settled into a pattern of the Celts driving to the
basket with pretty good success and the Hawks answering back with 3
pointers.  The Celts had built up a pretty good lead (20-13) when the
offense just went dead.  They couldn't run and they started to settle
for jump shots.  The Hawks got a 12-2 run to end the quarter leading
by 3 at 25-22.
     Alton Lister started the second quarter, and while he wasn't
dragging his leg around like an injured animal, he couldn't contribute
anything of substance.  The Hawks continued their strong play at the
end of the previous period and scored the first ten points of the
second.  All-in-all, the Celts were outscored 22-2 in about 8 minutes.
The Celts came back with an 11-0 run of their own to close the gap to
4 (37-33, with 7 of the points coming from Rick Fox).  Although the
Hawks briefly built the margin back up to 8, the Celts got another run
going and took the lead, with a minute to go in the half 46-44.  Ty
Corbin hit a three just before halftime to give the Hawks the lead
heading into the 3rd quarter at 47-46.
     The two squads traded the lead back and forth throughout the
third period, and the Celts had 1 point leads three different times.
The Hawks seemed to have opened a little daylight just before the end
of the quarter when another Corbin trey gave them a 5 point lead
(69-66).  With less than a second left on the clock, Marty Conlon
pushed an offensive rebound back through the hoop to close the gap to
three at 69-66. =20
     The game was very close throughout the early portions of the 4th,
as the Celts had 2 or three chances to take the lead, but could never
quite manage it.  The Celts tried to get the press going towards the
end of the game, but with Mookie Blaylock and Laettner handling the
ball the Hawks refused to accept the Celtics gambit.  They took an
extra second or two to bring the ball up and then executed their
normal offense.  The result was a very slow tempoed period, which gave
a big advantage to Atlanta.  With the run game shut down the Celts
went to the Walker/Mutumbo matchup to get offense over the last 3
minutes of the game.  Walker got the ball on 9 out of the last eleven
Celtic possessions and scored 9 of the Celts last 11 points.  On the
whole Walker was succesful at getting past Mutumbo to the basket, and
scored the ball 3 times (also missed 2).  But he got sent to the line
3 times and shot 3-6.  With ten seconds left,  and the Celts out of
timeouts, they went to Walker one last time (trailing by three), but
Walker dribbled the ball of his foot and lost control.  Rick Fox tried
to call timeout (illegally since the Celts were out of them), but the
refs just ignored him (they should have called a technical, I think).
D.J. and Fox argued for a couple of minutes with the refs (over what I
can't imagine) and then Recassner hit two free throws to make the
final score 95-90.
     Another very even game on the stats sheet (with one exception).
The Celts shot .457 to the Hawk's .451, and the C's hit 13-18 from the
free throw line while the Hawks were 12-18.  The field goal
percentages are a little misleading as the Hawks attempted 33 three
pointers (hitting just 9), while the Celts shot 13 (making 3).  So
really the Hawks shot .583 from inside the arc while the Celts shot
.497.  The C's did a great job guarding against turnovers with just
12, but they gave up 10 offensive rebounds to Mutumbo (in just 29
minutes), to give away that advantage.

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Day, Fox, Williams, Walker
         Hawks- Blaylock, Smith, Corbin, Laettner, Mutumbo

Players- Wesley-  a mysteriously quiet night for him.  Scored 9
points, on 4-10 shooting, 4 assists, 1 rebound and 1 steal in 39
minutes.  Maybe his foot acts up on the second night of a back to back
(the Celts have another one coming up this week).  Wes shot 10-27 over
the last 2 games and is 1-10 in threes over the last 4.

Walker- Another good night for the rookie.  8-18 from the field, 6-9
from the line, 9 boards (5 offensive), 4 assists, 2 steals and
(unfortunately) 4 of the Celts 12 turnovers in 37 minutes.  Mutumbo
killed the Celts on the boards, but between the first minute (with
Williams) and the last couple of minutes with Walker, the Celts didn't
drive on him too much.  In the second period, Walker grabbed a
defensive rebound and raced down the court, through the entire Hawks
defense, before he handed off to Williams at the basket to finish.
Brilliant!  Someone asked why Walker's shooting is so bad (once again
I would say that all of his 8 basket were scored within 5 feet of the
basket).  Heinsohn says it's because he never gets totally set and
square before he shoots the ball.  Cousy say it's because he rushes
most of his shots.  I think it's because Walker doesn't have a bedrock
shot, one that he';s practiced thousands of times and can repeat the
mechanics exactly time after time (almost all good shooter do,
although the shot varies from player to player).  Walker never takes
the same shot twice in a row.

=46ox- Shot the ball well, but had a very quiet night otherwise.  6-11
from the field for 14 [points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals and a
turnover in 34 minutes.  Fox has done a good job of cutting his
turnovers down with 13 over the last 8 games, but his assist
production is way down also with 21 over the same span.

Williams-Another good game for Eric from the field as he shot 7-13,
but only got 1 free throw.  His recent trend of solid rebounding
disappeared as he had just 2 in 25 minutes.   More and more it appears
that the key to William's offensive game is the couple of milliseconds
before the gets the ball.  If Eric has properly evaluated the
situation and goes into his shot/drive/turnaround immediatley he is
deadly.   But if he waits, and has to fake, or even just pause for a
beat and think about it, then he's lost.

Day-  Much better shooting night, as he was 7-16 (1-2 on threes) and
had 4 steals in 36 minutes.  His shot selection has improved vastly.

Dee- Led the team in assists tonight, with 6.  Shot 2-5 for 4 points,
but also had 3 turnovers in 28 minutes.

Conlon- Marty continued his string of effective games with 9 points
and 8 boards in 21 minutes.

Szabo- played hard per usual.  displayed very surprising speed, when
Mookie picked his pocket early in the fourth quarter.  He turned
around and raced Blaylock down to the other end and bothered his shot
(actually Tommy and Mookie thought that Szabo committed a foul), but
just getting back into the play was a significant achievement for a
guy that size.

Lister- 1 personal foul in 4 minutes.

Coaching- I thought that M.L. was a little off key for this game.  The
team appeared to be  to tired (or perhaps it was the solid ball
handling of the Hawks) to use the pressure defense tonight.  But M.L.
kept calling for it.  The team was competitive despite M.L.'s coaching
not because of it.  The Hawks didn't sag off of Williams the way
everyone else in the league does, but the Celts did';t take advantage
after the first couple of minutes.

Opposition Players of Note- Henry James (not the deceased novelist)- A
CBA refugee who had hit 8 three pointers in the last Hawks game.
Wilkens has been experimenting with playing James at the small forward
as he isn't convinced that Ty Corbin (who was solid if uninspiring) is
the guy he wants at the 3 (you can see why Hawks fans might be
interested in Fox).  James played 13 minutes tonight and nearly shot
the Hawks out of the ball game.  He was 1-9 from the field including a
mind boggling 1-7 from the three point arc (that prorates out to 26
threes attempted over 48 minutes!).  He had 0 rebounds, 0 assists
(naturally), 1 steal and 3 personals.  I hope this evening was an
off-night.

This game makes the Celts record 9-30.  They play again Tuesday
against the Knicks.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com          =20