Heat Pile on Celts: Miami 103- Boston 83

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

     The Celts jumped out of the frying pan and into the twilight zone
tonight.  Not only was Dee Brown out of the game because of the toe he
hyperextended against the Knicks last night, but Marty Conlon also
missed tonight's game with a sprained ankle.  Marty played the last
moments of the game in New York, so I don't know when he suffered his
injury.
     The Celts started off the game in their usual determined fashion.
They had the game at a tie score at 11-11, before the Heat went on a
8-2 run (19-13).  The Heat got their lead up to ten, just before the
end of the quarter, but David Wesley hit a three as the buzzer sounded
to cut the Heat lead to 7 (27-20).  While the Celts played hard, they
weren't running and the Heat were dominating the boards.
     Carr put Alton Lister and Brent Szabo into the game late in the
first quarter and they began to equalize the situation on the boards.
Meanwhile Todd Day was keeping the Celts in the game single handedly
(Day scored 16 in the first half).  Walker scored on a drive to the
basket to pull the Celts to within 4 at 34-30.  But Timmy Hardaway
assumed control of the game on both ends of the court, as he picked
the Celtic's pockets 4 times in the quarter and fed various members of
the Heat, especially Vashon Lenard for easy baskets.  Miami went on a
13-4 run to break the game open and assume a 47-34 lead.  On a
Hardaway 3, the Heat increased their lead to 16 (57-41) at the end of
the half.
     The Heat came out at the start of the third quarter and pushed
their lead up to 20, with a 6-2 run (63-53).  The Heat had gotten
their margin up to 24 (72-48) when the C's ran off 6 straight to cut
the lead to 18.  The Heat were leading at 82-62, when the game took a
nasty turn.  Austin clobbered Fox and the refs called an intentional
foul.  Fox hit both of his throws, and then, after the Celts got the
ball out of bounds Wesley hit a three for 5 points on one possession,
which cut the lead sown to 15 at 82-67.  Vincent Askew hit a jumper to
make the score 84-67 at the end of the quarter.
     The Celts, especially David Wesley, tried to make the game
interesting, but they just didn't have enough.  Off a 7-0 run the
Celts cut the lead to 13 (94-81), with about  4 minutes to go.  But
the Heat outscored the Celts 9-0 over the last 4 minutes to make the
final score 103-83.
     Despite the tremendous height disadvantage, the Celts managed to
gather more offensive rebounds than the Heat 17-11.  This was mostly
do to the fact that the Celts missed 47 shots while the Heat missed
35.  No surprise then that the Heat outshot the Celts from the field
.551 to .365.  The Celts tried to make it up by going hard to the
basket and were rewarded with 34 free throws (to Miami's 16).  In a
reversal of recent trend the Celts had more turnovers than the Heat
21-19.

Lineups- Celts-Wesley, Day, Fox, Williams, Walker
         Heat- Hardaway, Lenard, Askins, Brown, Mourning

Players- Wesley- shot better tonight at 8-16 though most of his good
work came in the 4th quarter when John Crotty was guarding him.  He
led the team with 23 points, 6 boards, 4 assists, 3 steals and 6
turnovers.  Wesley was pushing up until the last moments of the game,
though you have to wonder if this might have been an example of a game
where discretion would be the better part of valor.  In fact, why was
Wesley even in the game (he got 42 minutes tonight)?  Cousy said that
Wesley came out to the gym an hour early today (before the game) to
practice his shooting.  Both Cousy and Heinsohn thought that Wes might
have been better off taking it easy.

Walker- Scored 17 including 2 jump shots.  He also shot 7-10 from the
free throw line (and his shot looked much better).  But Walker was
held to 5 rebounds, and shot 5-13 (in general the Celtics front line
players were dominated by the Miami front line every time they got
near the basket).  He also had 6 turnovers.

Day- tremendous first half, but the Heat put the clamps on him in the
second.  19 points, shot 7-16, 8 boards and 2 steals in 39 minutes.

=46ox- Like Walker and Williams (the three Celtic front liners shot a
combined 11-39) seemed to be intimidated by the Heat big men.  Instead
of putting up the same shots as usual and getting a few of them
blocked, he changed his shot and just missed them.  Shot 3-13, 12
points, 6 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals and 3 turnovers in 37 minutes.

Williams- See Fox and Walker.  The Heat weren't conceding him
anything.  They played up on him and made him earn his points.  Eric
got 10 of them, on 3-13 shooting, 4 boards and 3 turnovers in 37
minutes.

Lister- Played 24 minutes tonight and though he didn't score, actually
looked pretty close to being healthy.  Got 7 boards, 2 assists and a
block in 24 minutes.  Moving much better.  Carr can probably use him
under the proper circumstances from here on.

Szabo- My guess is a new career high in minutes played with 18.
Scored 2 points, 4 boards and a block.  The usual good hustle.

Coaching- Why play Wesley 42 minutes?  Does it matter if the Celts
lose by 20 or 40?  And why don't the Celts pull the guy that Mourning
plays out beyond the arc and get Zo out from under the basket?

This game makes the Celtic's record for the season 3-32.  They play
again Friday night, at home against the Blazers.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com
    =20