Bullets Bully Celts: Washington 105- Boston 92

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	Actually, the Celts were in this game up until the final 6
minutes or so of the 4th quarter.  Though they trailed for the entire
second half, they were hanging around (not that it means much).  The
Bullets broke the C's back by outscoring the Celts 17-5 down the
stretch.  Dee Brown reinjured his toe late in the first quarter.=09
	The game started with the Bullets very cold from the field,
and the Celts running the ball impressively.  Despite an eccentric
early Celtic strategy of going to Brent Szabo against Gheorge Muresan,
The Celts jumped out to an 10-4 lead.  Bernie Bickerstaff called a
timeout -and got his player's heads back into the game, and they
responded with an 8-2 run to tie the game at 12-12.   Eric Williams
began to get his typical first quarter act going (at one point he
scored 7 consecutive C's points) and the Celts pushed out to a 27-22
lead at the end of the period.  On the last Celt possession of the
period, the C's cleared out for Dee and he seemed to have his man
beaten when he slipped and turned the ball over.  Apparently he
reinjured his toe.  Although he played the first 6 minutes or so of
the second period, after that he couldn't return to the game. =20
	With Muresan out of the game, M.L. went very small to start
the second period, with Hawkins, Dee, Day, Fox and Wesley on the
court.  Momentarily it worked as the Celts increased their lead to
29-22.  But the small unit wasn't taking advantage of their speed and
quickness against the larger Bullets.  Slowly the size of the Bullets
began to win out and Washington posted an 8-0 run to take a 39-36
lead.  M.L. quickly got Walker, Wesley and Williams back into the
game, but they had lost the pace also.  The Bullets continued to
extend their lead and pushed it up to 49-39.  Finally the Celts began
to return to their running ways of the first quarter and cut the lead
to 51-47.  But Tracy Murray hit a three on the last play of the half
to push the Bullets lead back out to 56-49.
	A couple of possessions into the third quarter (no scoring
yet) Antoine Walker drove to the basket, missed, retrieved the
offensive board, drove again and crashed into Muresan's chest.
Muresan grabbed the ball away from him and just barely missed caving
in Walker's skull  with an elbow.  Walker took exception, and cocked
his fist back like he was going to hit Big Gheorge.  He restrained
himself (or he was just posturing in the first place: it was hard to
tell), but the refs called a Technical on him anyway.   M.L. took
Walker out of the game in favor of Conlon.  With Szabo and Conlon both
on the floor at the same time, the C's offense stalled badly.   They
didn't score till about the 8:00 minute mark of the period, and the
Bullets had extended their lead to 63-49.   The Celts worked the lead
back down to single digits and then, on an Walker three, got the score
to 79-74 (Bullets) at the end of the quarter.
	The teams traded baskets for the first 5:00 minutes of the
quarter, before the Bullets went on a 5-0 run to take an 11 point lead
(93-82) midway through the period.  The Celts tried to get back into
the game and did pull to within 95-88, when Fox put an errant Day
three pointer back through the hoop.   For some ungodly reason Carr
put Hamer in to play Webber and Chris just went wild.  The Bullets
went on a 10-0 run to take a 105-88 lead with 3:00 to go in the game.
Bickerstaff pulled his starters and we were treated to three minutes
of garbage time.  The final score was 105-92.
 	A pretty simple game actually.  The Celts took 80 shots and
hit 36, while the Bullets took 83 and hit 43.  Each team took 23 free
throws (C's hit 14 and the Bullets hit 13).   Each team also hit 6
threes.  The Bullets took more shots because they did a better job on
the boards (as they should have with their height advantage).  They
also had 15 turnovers to the Celtics 16.

Lineups- Celts- Wesley, Fox, Williams, Walker, Szabo
                 Bullets- Strickland, Cheaney, Webber, Howard, Muresan

Players- Williams- Played a great game on offense, with 24 points on
8-10 shooting (8-11 from the line).  He also had 6 boards in 35
minutes.  As usual, though, he did most of his damage early with 12
points in the first quarter.  Took his normal spin move and combined
it with a hard drive, to produce several ballet like plays.

Walker-13 points (6-13 shooting) and 10 boards.  Didn't get to foul
line all night.  Didn't do quite the job of grabbing the defensive
boards and pushing the ball up the court that he has been recently.

Wesley- Didn't do a bad job on Strickland, who only scored 8 points.
But even if Wesley cut Strickland off after he penetrated partially,
it was enough to free up the Bullets outside shooters (especially
Murray).  The result was that Strickland had 17 assists.   Wesley had
15 points, 11 assists and 4 boards in 38 minutes,  himself.

=46ox- 17 points (6-11), 4 boards and 4 assists in 35 minutes.  In the
second quarter, when M.L. had the very small lineup in, Rick had to
guard Howard, and didn't do a bad job.

Day- Ouch- After barely (by his standards) shooting the ball the last
three games, Todd came out gunning tonight.  Unfortunately it was
unclear what he was aiming for, as he missed his first 6 shots, and
ended the game with a 3-14.  He had 7 points in 29 minutes.  To a
great extent this game turned on the difference in play between the
two team's gunners off the bench.  Tracy Murray scored 24 points on 14
shots (and three free throws). =20

Conlon- Played very hard and scored 7 points and had 7 boards in 29
minutes.  He seemed to be trying too hard on offense, rather than
letting the game come to him.  Although he didn't record any
turnovers, several times he drove the ball and then was unable to
finish and had to pass the ball back out, leaving his teammates
seconds to create a good shot.

Dee- What can you say? Didn't score, had 1 board and 1 turnover in 8
minutes.  No word on how much he's hurt, though it's hard to see how
badly he could be hurt if he continued to play for 6 minutes after the
reinjury occurred.

Szabo- Picked up 4 fouls, 2 points and 2 boards in 7 minutes.

Lister- Came into the game in the third period and provided a little
stability when things were going badly.   He and Muresan had to jump a
ball up against each other.  I don't think either one even left the
court.  Maybe Alton got up on his toes, but it wasn't nearly enough to
get the ball away from Gheorge.

Hamer- M.L. didn't even put him into the game until late in the third.
Not everything he did was bad, as he scored 4 points, had 2 boards and
a block in 8 minutes.  But there was no way that he could play Webber.

Hawkins- Played for 8 minutes, and while he hit the last C's shot of
the game for a three, he didn't do much else.

Coaching- The big turning point (I thought) came when Dee got hurt and
tried to play through it.  Dee's been doing a great job, in the few
games he's been back, of pushing the team up the floor, and he might
have been able to maintain the pace through the early stages of the
second quarter.  But when he got hurt and stayed in the game anyway,
to play ineffectively, it just killed the C's momentum.  I don't know
what M.L. was thinking with the Hamer/Webber matchup. =20
	Also Williams continues to have problems with playing on the
perimeter on defense.  A lot of Murray's points came when Eric tried
to sag off him to help on defense (or just to get to where he was
comfortable).  This is a real kink in William's game that needs to be
worked out.

The Celts record is now 13-58!  They get another shot at winning their
first division game of the year against the 76ers on Friday.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com