Jazz Drum Celts: Utah 113-Boston 100

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	Another one of those games where the score was not indicative
of the actual magnitude of the Celtic's defeat.  Sending the
defensively challenged Celts out to play one of the most proficient,
polished offensive clubs in the history of the league was a recipe for
a blowout, and even though the Jazz seemed to have a hard time getting
into the game, once they did the result was inevitable.  The Celts
were leading 39-35 with 7:56 to go in the second quarter, when Jerry
Sloan called timeout and told his guys to get their act together.  All
they did was outscore the C's 65-33 through the end of the third
quarter.  The Celts actually outscored the Jazz 28-13 in the 4th
quarter/garbage time.   The Jazz are so disciplined that their bench
was actually slowing the game down during garbage time (the first time
I've ever seen that).
	For a while though it looked as though the C's might make a
game of it.  Despite enormous troubles guarding Karl Malone, the game
was tied at 14 apiece, midway through the first quarter.  The Celts
actually took a brief lead at 36-24.  but the Jazz scored the last 4
points of the period to take a 30-28 lead.
	 With Malone out of the game the Jazz were having a hard time
scoring at the outset of the second quarter.  The Celts took advantage
to go on a 11-5 run to take a 39-35 lead.  Sloan called timeout and
promised his starters that if they would just play hard for  20
minutes or so, he'd give them the 4th quarter off.  The Jazz, in the
7th game of a road trip seemed eager to take their coach up on his
offer and went on a 21-4 run, to give themselves a 56-43 lead (and
essentially to wrap the game up).   The Celts  got some nice all
around floor play from Antoine Walker to stabilize the situation, but
the Jazz still held their 13 point lead at the end of the half, 64-51.
	The Jazz started out the third quarter with another 12-0 run,
to push the lead up to 25 points (76-51).  The Celts made a bid to get
back into the game with a 11-4 run of their own, which cut the lead to
18 (80-62), but it far too little.  Dee Brown was in the game and
playing pretty effectively in this part of the game.  The Jazz
finished the quarter with a 16-4 run to lead 100-72.
	Sloan took all of his starters out at the start of the 4th
quarter (actually just their normal rotation), except for Stockton,
who played the first couple of minutes.  The Celts stuck to their
normal players and began to chip away at the Jazz lead.  With 4
minutes to go they had the lead down to 109-91.  They finished with a
9-4 run to make the score appear semi-respectable at 113-100.
 	Including the last quarter the Jazz shot .523 for the game (to
the C's .410), but they were shooting close to 60% at the end of the
third period.   The Celts (thanks E.W.) had a huge advantage at the
free throw line as they shot 31-38 (Jazz 18-20).   The Celts also
caused 20 Utah turnovers (the C's had 14) but didn't do a good job of
converting them to points.  For the second time in three games the
Celts had horrendous problems on their defensive boards as the Jazz
had as many offensive rebounds as the C's did defensive (the league
average is a 2-1 ratio).  The C's did do a fair job on their offensive
board with 15.

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Fox, Williams, Walker, Szabo
                 Jazz- Stockton, Hornacek, Russell, Malone, Ostertag

Players- Williams- It's official.  Eric has the best fakes in the
league.  He got Antoine Carr to foul him on a THREE pointer
(off-balance with the 24 second clock expiring, and he hit all three
throws).  Williams got to the free throw line 15 times this evening
and shot 5-8 from the field as he scored 22 points, had 2 boards and 3
steals in 38 minutes.  He spent part of the game trying to guard
Malone and just had no chance (which was the case for all the
Celtics).

Walker- another pretty solid game.  22 points (8-16), 8 boards, 4
assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks in 37 minutes.  Several really nice
passes for easy baskets and some nice drives.  Hit one three pointer
and at least one other long jumper.  Also 5-5 from the free throw
line.

Wesley- Only played 24 minutes (what, vacation already?) and had 7
points (2-7) 1 board, 6 assists and a steal.  Held Stockton to 10
points, 10 assists and 1 steal (all well below his career averages,
though Stockton only played 29 minutes).

=46ox- 13 points on 6-15 shooting.  Maybe more importantly had 2
rebounds, 1 assist and 2 steals as the solid floor game is neutralized
at the guard position.  The missing defensive rebounds that Fox would
be getting if he were playing the forward position seem to be hurting
the C's.  The one assist he did have was a dandy, as he posted,
swiveled his shoulders like he was going up for the turnaround, took a
dribble, and then threw a behind the back bounce pass to Williams for
an easy basket.

Dee- The stats don't show it, but I thought that Dee played pretty
well in 23 minutes.  He only shot 2-9, but scored 8 points, 4 assists
and a steal.  Brown drove to the basket a number of times in the game,
pushed the ball up the floor several times and threw some nice passes.
Still far from in good shape.

Day- Only shot the ball 6 times in 23 minutes tonight (he hit 2).  He
scored 8 points, but had 5 boards and 2 steals.

Szabo-played pretty well again as he had 2 points and 4 boards in 15
minutes.  Seems to be gaining confidence, though he still can't seem
to do much on offense except head for the basket when he's left alone.

Conlon- 8 points and 3 boards, but uncharacterisitcally missed 3-5
shots, mostly easy (for him) jumpers.  Unbeliveably (to me at least)
Marty executed his spin move so quickly on one play that he actually
lost his balance.

Lister- M.L. put him in to try and slow Malone down.  I can't say that
he did much to stop Karl, but he did get 3 offensive boards and 2
points in 10 minutes.

Hamer- played the last 9 minutes for the game and had 5 rebounds ( 3
offensive) in that time.  Unfortunately only shot 1-5.

King- Played 5 minutes and had 2 points and 1 rebound.  The Celts 4
centers combined for 39 minutes and scored 8 points and had 13 boards.
I'm beginning to think that the boards figures are misleading, as they
pick up a lot of offensive boards (7 tonight) because they're not
guarded, but generally can't finish.

Hawkins- Got just 6 minutes at the end of the game as most of the
back-up minutes went to Dee.  Made some nice plays agasint Jazz backup
howard Eisley to score 4 points and 1 assist.

Coaching- There was a funny play this evening.  The Celts got the ball
off a made Jazz shot and tried to call a timeout.  But the refs ruled
that the C's turned the ball over when they wouldn't recongize the
timeout.  M.L. grabbed the ball and wouldn't give it back to the refs.
They called a delay of game penalty on him (or at least threatened to,
it wasn't to clear).  But finally they gave him the timeout, though
the Jazz still got the ball.

Opposition Players of Note- Malone and Stockton of course.  Malone had
32 points (13-18), 12 rebounds, and 4 assists.  But I have a question.
Can two of the top 50 players of all time compile the kind of record
that M & S have, and never get their team to the conference finals?
If it was any other players in any other town, people would have been
asking this question years ago (just talk to Shawn Kemp and Gary
Payton).  It's been obvious for a long time that the Jazz management,
being the only game in town, is quite happy to win 55-60 games and
lose deep in the playoffs, rather than spend the bucks to get help for
these guys.  But I wonder if M & S were the kind of players that would
stick their noses into managements business and insist on some help,
if the wouldn't have done a little better.  And has any young player
ever gone to Utah and actually become a solid player in the league?
Since Malone and Stockton themselves, that is.  =20

The Celts are now 13-53.  They host the Magic this Friday.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com
=20