Celts Deliver on St Paddies Day: Boston 126-Milwaukee 117

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

             The Celts finally got a break on the schedule (a
coincidence?), as they got to play one of the few teams that have been
going as poorly as they are in the Milwaukee Bucks.  The Celts put up
identical 58 points halves, as they got the Bucks in serious foul
trouble, with Glenn Robinson and Vin Baker both fouling out of the
game.  Dee Brown came out of retirement to play 7 minutes in tonight's
game.     =20
	The Celts  got off first in this game, helped by two Rick Fox
three's to a 10-3 lead.  Chris Ford called a timeout and explained to
his guys that when the ref throws the ball up you're supposed to start
playing.  The basics of the game explained to them, the Bucks
responded with a 18-4 run to take a 21-14 lead.  The Celts scored on
their last 8 possessions of the period, and on a David Wesley three
tied the game just before the end of the quarter 31-31.
	Dee Brown made his first appearance in quite a while at the
start of the second.  Rick Fox, who after his first couple of three's
had missed a several outside shots, went to the driving game to score
a couple of baskets against Glenn Robinson.  Midway through the period
Brent Szabo, put back an errant Walker shot, to score his 8th point of
the game (a new career high).   The  Celts, as usual, had no answer to
the dynamic game of Baker (17 first half points) as the Bucks built a
56-51 lead.   The Celts got to the free throw line towards the end of
the half and tied the game just before halftime 58-58.
	Fox scored 7 of the C's first 11 points in the second half,
but the Bucks slowly appeared to be taking control of the game.  The
other half of the Bucks great tag team combo, Robinson, was heating
up, as Milwaukee took a 75-69 lead.   The score was 81-75, when the
Celts went on a 17-5 run, with Wesley scoring 9, to take a 92-86 lead,
at the end of the quarter.
	The Celts continued their strong play at the start of the 4th
as they scored the first 5 of the quarter to push the lead up to 11
(97-86).   With the score at 97-90,  Michael Hawkins picked up a loose
ball of the floor, and pushed the ball quickly up the court.  Robinson
had to foul Hawkins to prevent an easy basket, picking up his fifth
foul of the game.  Baker, who had been on the bench with foul trouble
himself, came back into the game and tried to take the load on
himself.  Perhaps Carr left Hawkins and Lister in the game for too
long, as the Bucks closed the lead down to 4 points at 101-97.   The
Celts pushed the lead back up to 8 as Williams fed Walker for a huge
jam, and then got a stuff himself, on a feed from Conlon.  A few
moments later, Robinson committed his 6th foul sending Williams to the
line to make the score 109-101 with 5:00 to go in the game.  With 3:30
left the Celts played brilliant defense against Baker, as they
collapsed three men on him twice in the same defensive sequence, and
stripped the ball from him.  The C's ran the ball back down the floor
and Williams (who was obviously huge down the stretch) hit a basket
and converted the free throw  to put the Celts up 116-102 (3:00 left).
The Celts went on to win the game comfortably 126-117.
	The Celts had one of their best shooting nights of the year
(.526 from the field) as well as a scintillating night from the free
throw line where they were 38-43.  In fact, they scored one fewer
basket than the Bucks (who shot .545), but hit 9 more free throws.
The Celts, playing for the second night in a row, also had good
numbers in the effort stats as they out rebounded the Bucks 39-32
(13-9 on the offensive boards) and had 10 steals.

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Fox, Williams, Walker, Szabo
                 Bucks- Douglas, Allen, Robinson, Baker, Gilliam  =20

Players- Eric Williams-Had a very impressive game with 25 points (6-10
shooting and 13-14 from the free throw line), 4 assists and 2 steals
in 28 minutes of playing time.  M.L. kept him on the bench for much of
the second quarter as he tried to put bigger guys on Vin Baker.  But
it was Williams ability to draw the foul that neutralized Baker for
much of the game.

Walker- 24 points, 7 boards, and 4 assists in 38 minutes.  He had a
off night shooting the ball, though his shot selection was fairly
good.  Only shot 7-20, but made up for it by going 9-12 from the line.

Down the stretch made a big play as Wesley was forced to take an off
balance jumper with the shot clock running out.  Walker, who had been
forced out of bound by Johnny Newman, ran around Newman (still out of
bounds) came from behind the basket, grabbed the offensive rebound and
put it back in.

=46ox- Another very solid shooting night, as he was 8-13 from the field
including 3-6 from behind the arc.  Had 21 points, 4 boards, 3 assists
and 2 steals in 33 minutes.

Wesley- One of the few C's to shoot poorly tonight as he shot 3-10,
but hit 7-8 from the free throw line for 15 points.  Also had 8
assists in just 36 minutes of playing time.  It will be interesting to
see if David can get his legs back now that Hawkins is playing better
and Dee is back. =20

Day- Scored 17, but was off from behind the arc at 0-3.  He made up
for it by hitting 7-8 from inside the arc, on a variety of nice short
jumpers and floaters.  Very under control in this game.  Helped out
with 6 boards, 2 steals and 2 blocks.

Conlon- Hit for 12 points on 5-7 shooting.  Also had 2 boards and 2
assists in 31 minutes.  He played that much because he seemed to have
a good handle on playing against Baker, who only scored 8 in the
second half after putting up 17 in the first.  Marty seems to regard
Joe Wolf as the poor man's Marty Conlon, and took the ball hard to him
every time that he got the ball in the second quarter.

Szabo- His best game so far.  Scored 10 points and was a perfect 4-4
from the field (none from further away than 6 inches) and 2-2 from the
free throw line.  Also had 5 boards and 2 blocks in 20 minutes.

Lister- the old guy showed some real hustle tonight.  Got 2 points and
5 boards in 12 minutes, and really threw his body into the game.

Dee Brown- Played for 6 minutes and looks like he'll need a lot more
minutes than that to get into any kind of playing shape again.

Hawkins- was on the floor for some of the Celtics good play at the
start of the 4th quarter.  Didn't score, but continues to look more
comfortable all the time.

King- only got 5 minutes and just had 2 boards.  The Celts Center by
committee (Szabo, Lister and King: Hamer was DNP) played for 37
minutes, had 12 points and 12 rebounds: a big contribution on a night
when Walker led the team in rebounding with 7.=20

Coaching-M.L.'s new found policy of conserving the physical stamina of
his players seems to be paying off.  Certainly the Celts best effort
of the year in the second game of a back to back.  If the Celts can
get Dee into shape they might be able to go back to the pressing, high
tempo game that they would presumably like to be playing (the Celts
actually dressed 12 players tonight).=20
  	On the other hand, Chris Ford seems to be sinking fast in
Milwaukee.  He's got a bunch of great offensive players, but seems to
have made no headway at all in convincing them to play defense.
Reportedly, the Bucks are not pleased at all with his rather
taskmasterish style of coaching, including Vin Baker, who I had always
heard was a pretty solid citizen.  They're now have something like 3
wins in their last 22 games, and it looks like they may have a hard
time winning 30 games (which is barely an improvement over their
embarrassing performance of last season).  They may beat out the
Bullets as the most underachieving team in the league this season.

The Celts record is now 13 (YEA!) and 53.  They are on the schedule
again this Wednesday against the Rampaging Utah Jazz (home).=20

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com

P.S. I hate to blow my own horn (well actually I like it, but...).  I
deserve about 1/1000 of the credit for tonight's win.  I wrote up the
portion of this post that dealt with the first 2 quarters, during
halftime (being rather pressed for time these days).  I titled the
post "Celts beat Bucks" even though the score was tied at the time.
I'm sure my positive thinking played a big role in the victory.  Don't
worry, Josh, I promise to use this power sparingly for the rest of the
season.=20