Pistons Edge Celts in OT: Detroit 106- Boston 100

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

*** Sorry this is late. I lost the original last night (okay, I messed
***up).  I had to get up this morning and retype it.

	This was certainly a bitter loss for the C's tonight.  It
looked as though they had pulled off one of their best wins of the
year when Rick Fox rebounded a David Wesley miss, and put it back
through the hoop to give the Celts a 2 point lead (84-82) with just .3
seconds remaining on the clock.  But, on the next play, Lindsay Hunter
cut behind the Celtic's defense and was hit with a perfect lob pass
(40 feet long) by Grant Hill to tie the game, and send it into
overtime.  Although, the Celts had their chances, the Pistons handled
them fairly easily in the overtime period to win the game 106-100.
 	The way the game started out it didn't look as though the
Pistons would be needing any overtime periods.   They used a 9-0 run
(as Hill twice hit Otis Thorpe for wide open jams) to take an 14-8
lead midway through the first period.  With the exception of Eric
Williams (10 points in the 1st period), the rest of the Celtics
offense seemed to have thought that the game started at 7:30 instead
of 7:00.   The Pistons got off another 7-0 run at the end of the
quarter to make the score 25-14.
   	Todd Day and Marty Conlon came off the bench to spark a Celtic
resurgence, and they combined for 13 points to lead the home team to a
19-8 run to tie the game at 33-33.  The two squads traded hoops for
the rest of the quarter.  The Celts were holding a 42-41 lead late in
the period, when the Pistons scored the last 2 baskets of the half to
take a 45-42 lead.
	The Pistons threatened to take control of the game early in
the third quarter when they used a 9-2 run to take ten point lead at
60-50.  The Celts, using pressure defense and getting 6 points from
Antoine Walker, came back with a 10-0 run of their own to retie the
game at 60.    Both teams traded baskets again through to the end of
the  quarter, with the score heading into the final quarter at 69-68.
	Neither team could get their offenses in gear at the outset of
the 4th.  Grant Hill broke the ice, with a single free throw on the
11th possession of the period.   The Pistons took a 4 point lead,
which they last held at 76-72.  The C's slowly chipped away at the
margin and finally grabbed the lead away on a Williams turnaround with
2:35 remaining (81-80).  The Pistons regained the lead on a pair of
Hill free throws immediately.  With a minute left in the quarter it
looked like the C's got a break when Thorpe seemed to have beaten Day
along the baseline.  Walker pushed Thorpe out of bounds and the refs
gave the ball to the Celts.  The C's got a free throw from Williams on
the next possession to tie the game at 82 (Thorpe fouled out on the
play).  After Hill missed a jumper, with 16 seconds left, the Celtics
didn't take a timeout.  Instead they slowly advanced the ball into
frontcourt (taking most of the ten seconds).  Wesley drove around the
right sideline, and launched a difficult three pointer.  Fox ran to
the board, grabbed the ball and hit a little 2 foot bunny to give the
Celts the lead with .3 (that's three tenths of a second) on the clock.
On the inbounds play, the Pistons maneuvered Eric Williams into
guarding Hunter, who rubbed of a pick by Terry Mills and headed to the
basket.  Williams and Walker didn't switch and Williams was slow
reacting to the cut.  Hill threw a pass about 1 foot to the left and
level with the rim, and Hunter redirected it (he barely caught it)
into the basket.  The game was headed into OT with the score tied at
84-84.
	The Celts took the lead in overtime with a turnaround by Fox.
Mills, who had a terrible shooting game up until this point drilled a
three pointer to give the Pistons the lead, and then Hill drove to the
basket to push the margin up to 3, at 89-86.  Todd Day hit a three to
tie the game at 89-89, and the Pistons reacted with a 7-0 run keyed by
2 more Hill drives to the basket.  That gave the Pistons a 96-89 lead
with 1:00 left.  The Celts started to foul and the Pistons hit 10
straight free throws to ice the game.  The final was 106-100. =20
	The Celtics played their strongest game in weeks, but the only
reason they were in this game at all, was that the Pistons had a
miserable night form three point range, as they shot 4-23, to the
Celtic's 8-19.  Amazingly the Pistons still had a much better overall
field goal percentage (.513) than the Celts (.430), as the Piston shot
an amazing .660 from inside the arc.  The Celts did get 7 more
offensive rebounds than the Pistons (13-6) and 5 fewer turnovers
(20-15) to help them to take 17 more field goal attempts than the
Pistons.  The Celts actually scored one more field goal than the
Pistons (40-39).  But after the Pistons started the game cold from the
free throw line they were very solid down the stretch and ended the
game shooting 24-30 from the free throw line.  Oddly, the two teams
combined for 38 points in the overtime, after scoring 39 in the first
period and just 31 in the 4th.

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Fox, Williams, Walker, Szabo
                 Pistons- Hunter, Dumars, Hill, Thorpe, Ratliff=20

Players- Williams- for at least the second game in a row, Williams had
a monster first quarter (10 points tonight) and then disappeared for
the remainder of the game, as the opposition made the adjustment to
double team him.  Eric scored 15 points on 6-16 shooting, had 5 boards
and 4 assists in 40 minutes.  Eric started out the game guarding Hill,
and although he got burnt pretty bad a couple of times, didn't seem to
be dong that badly.  But the rest of the Celts lacked confidence in
him, and were constantly leaving their men to help Eric out (or at
least try to).  Hill exploited the passing lanes that opened up to
give out easy baskets to the Piston (especially Thorpe and Ratliff).

Walker- although the game started with Williams being guarded by Hill,
Doug Collins crossed the Celts up by having Hill guard Walker.  Walker
responded by playing the first half on the perimeter, settling for
jump shots and staying away form the offensive boards.  In the second
half, when M.L. played Day for most of the time, Hill guarded Fox, and
Walker was checked by Thorpe and Mills.  Since Walker was being
guarded by much bigger men, he started to go inside,and go to the
offensive board (I'm sure that makes sense to Antoine).  Walker also
got out on the front of the fast break for some nice jams.  Scored 20
points (8-19), had ten boards (4 offensive), and 3 assists in 48
minutes.

=46ox- After the problems with Hill in the first half, Carr put Day into
the lineup and Fox got the job of guarding Hill down the stretch. Ii
can't honestly say that Rick did a tremendous job, but at least he
wasn't embarrassed very often.  His teammates seemed much more
comfortable with the defensive assignments and stayed home on their
own men much better, forcing Hill to take the shot, rather than pass
so much.  Fox scored 17 himself in the game (7-16), had 6 assists and
6 boards in 46 minutes.  The scoring is a little misleading as Rick
hit two baskets in the last minute of the game when they clearly
didn't mean too much.

Wesley- played 52 minutes tonight (Are you going to be ready for
Brandon, Saturday night, David?).   Shot poorly from 3 point range at
0-5.  Scored 12 points, had 6 boards and 12 rebounds, as Wesley did
his best job in a while of pushing the ball up the court.

Day- Got the Celts back into the game in the second quarter and helped
to keep then in it in the second half.  Scored 24 points, had 6 boards
and 3 steals in 38 minutes.  At 10-17, he was the only Celtic to shoot
over 50%, including 5-7 on threes.

Conlon- didn't have a good scoring night, as the Pistons, who are very
familiar with him, were careful not to let him get open for the jumper
Scored 6 points (2-7) and had 4 boards in 24 minutes.  Did help out
with some heady veteran plays.

Szabo- May have gotten hurt in the game, as he has a heavy wrap on his
left elbow.  Actually looked fairly good at the start of the second
half.  Had 4 points, 2 boards and a block in 11 minutes.

Lister- played 5 minutes and registered one foul.

Coaching- This was very interesting game, with the contrast in tempo
between the two teams, and the interplay between the lineups.  The
Celts tried hard to push the tempo in the game and were successful
enough at certain junctures to keep themselves in the game with some
easy baskets.  In the 4th quarter and the overtime, the Pistons
dictated the tempo, but through the 4th, the Celtics responded with
some of their best half court defense of the year.  They harassed the
Pistons, made life uncomfortable for them, and managed to at least
play them even at the Pistons preferred tempo. If they had just kept
it up .3 second longer.  I thought that the C's were a little
dispirited in the overtime, as they let down on the defensive end a
little bit.

This makes the Celts record 11-45 (it was also their 12th straight
loss)	They are traveling to Cleveland to play tonight (Saturday).
If the Cavs could hold the Bulls to 70 they should be able to keep the
C's down to 50.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com

P.S. On my schedule it show that the Celts play in Toronto this Monday
at 4:00.  Is this right? and why?