Knicks Knock Down Celts: New York 113-Boston 102

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Knicks and the Celts certainly deserve a "C" for
consistency.  After they played, on consecutive night to scores of
111-98 and 112-99 this past January, they came back tonight with a
score of 113-102 (actually John Starks held the ball for the last 15
seconds of the game: If he had scored it would have made the margin 13
for the third time in a row).  The Celts played with a lot of energy
and enthusiasm in the first half and built a lead of twenty points.
The Knicks came back, of course, and outscored the Celts 58-28 over
the next 20 minutes.  Chris Childs missed tonights game with a bruised
wrist.  Michael Hawkins reemerged, and has been signed for the rest of
the year.=20
	The Celts got off to a fast start this evening, especially
=46ox, who had 5 of the Celt's first 8 points to help them to an 8-2
lead.  The Knicks began to get the ball inside to Ewing and got back
to with a point at 16-15.   The score stood at 25-23, with two minutes
left in the period, when Fox struck for another 5 points and the Celts
took a 32-27 lead into the second quarter.   Fox had 15 in the first
quarter.
	The Celts continued to play aggressive up tempo ball in the
second and applied pressure when Scott Brooks came into the game to
play the point in relief of Charlie Ward.  The Celts were leading
37-31 and the Knicks were exhibiting some extremely ragged play when
Jeff Van Gundy called a timeout, just so he could give his team a look
that would have made Todd Day proud.  It still didn't help as the
Celts increased their lead to 41-33.  With about 5:00 minutes left and
the score at 44-39, the Celts embarked on an 18-4 run to take a 62-43
lead.   After Oakley hit a layup, Wesley came back with a three
pointer, to give the Celts a 65-45 lead, with 1:20 to go in the half.
In a precursor of the second half, though, the Knicks scored the last
5 points of the half (including a Larry Johnson 18 foot turnaround at
the buzzer) to cut the Celts lead to 15 at 65-50.  Fox added another
10 in the second quarter to bring his halftime total to 25.
	Typically the Knicks came out with increased defensive
pressure to start the third, and the Celts responded with panic.  The
Knicks outscored the C's 21-6 over the first 7 minutes of the period
to tie the game at 71-71.  The Celts started to go to the jump shot in
the face of the Knicks pressure, and the Knicks took the Celtics
missed shots and ran back the other way.  The Celts rallied and scored
8 straight of their own (5 by E.W.).   The Knicks outscored the C's
13-4 through the end of the period to tie the game 84-84.
	The Celts, after the overtime game last night, clearly were
running on empty in the 4th quarter.   Rick Fox scored a conventional
three point play on the first C's possession of the quarter, to give
himself a new career high of 34, and then took one more shot the rest
of the quarter.  The Knicks outscored the C's 19-9 over the fist 5:35
of the period to take a ten point lead at 103-93.  The Celts tried to
get back into the game, but the Knicks were getting all the loose
balls and could grab an offensive board anytime they felt like it.
With 2:00 to go in the game the C's got the lead down to 6 (107-101),
but the Knicks ran the table with 6 of the final 7 points in the game.
The final was 113-102 New York.
	After shooting nearly 50% in the first half, the Celts ended
up shooting .430 for the game (the Knicks shot .500).  The Celts got
outrebounded 46-36 (14-11 on the offensive boards).  And while they
only committed ten rebounds, they only caused the Knicks to have 10,
as the Celts had only 4 steals. =20

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Fox, Williams, Walker, Szabo
                 Knicks- Ward, Houston, Johnson, Oakley, Ewing

Players- Fox- Got the new career high on 13-21 shooting (3-4 from the
line, 5-9 on threes) which is pretty efficient, no matter how you
slice it.  The rest of the team was 24-65 (.370).  Fox only had 3
rebounds, 1 assist and 2 steals as shooting seemed to take up most of
his energy tonight.   Actually Fox did a pretty solid defensive job as
well.  He scored 15 in the first, 10 in the seond 6 in the third and
three in the 4th, as, like the rest of the team he was clearly
exhausted by the end of the game.

Walker- took one more shot than Fox and scored less than half as many
points.  7-22 shooting for 16 points, (0-4 on threes).  had 6 boards,
1 assist and 7 turnovers.  He tried to go into the defense several
times, but the Knicks mobbed him and generally stripped the ball away
from him.  After last nights fractiousness with Rice, he got it going
with Larry Johnson tonight.  Must not be showing the proper respect
for his elders.

Wesley- Played just 42 minutes tonight.    Scored 16 points on 5-12
shooting, 3 boards and 11 assists.  He had 9 of those assists at
halftime.

Williams- made some dazzling plays in this game, but generally
alternated them with rather poor looking jumpers and blown layups.
Scored 16 points on 4-12 from the floor and 8-12 form the free throw
line.  Also had 6 boards and 3 assists.

Day- Todd didn't have his stroke tonight and scored only 11 points in
28 minutes.  He shot 5-12 and tied for the lead in rebounding with 6.
Actually, if you think about it, for Todd to only attempt 12 shots in
28 minutes shows an unusual amount of restraint.

Conlon- I wonder if, when Conlon signed with the Celts, he envisioned
having to guard Patrick Ewing one on one.  Well Marty did his best for
19 minutes, though, in truth he wasn't that effective (Ewing scored 39
in the game, on 16-25 shooting).  He also contributed 9 points and 4
boards.=20

Szabo- Didn't score or shoot, but did gather 5 boards in 14 minutes.
Patrick was able to push him around pretty easily on "D".

Hawkins- Carr put him into the game in the 2nd quarter, but Hawk was
ineffective, turning over the ball and generally looking lost.  M.L.
took him out after 4 minutes and let Walker play the point for a
couple minutes before he put Wesley back in.

Hamer- Just got into the game for three minutes, and seems to have
regressed.   One of the Celts put up a hard three, which bounced of
the rim in Hamer's direction.  Not only did Steve not get the rebound,
he couldn't even get his hands up in time to protect himself before
the ball hit him.

Coaching- Do you wonder why M.L. can motivate the Celts to play hard
at the start of the game, but he can't get them to play smart at
halftime?  The question answers itself: M.L. doesn't know what to tell
them to do.  Everyone knows that a good veteran team, that the C's
outplay in the first half is going to respond by turning up the heat
in the second, but they don't know what to do about it.  I think that
after a while it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, as the C's try to
make great plays (like shooting 3's) to forestall the collapse they
know is coming.  As soon as the other team gets the  game tied up, the
pressure is off and the Celts play much better.

The Celts record is now 12-49 (hey they're over the magic ".800" mark
again!).   They play Atlanta, at home, 12:30 Sunday afternoon.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com
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