Pacers Outlast Celts: Indianapolis 93-Boston 87

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts just got out of the gate to slowly in this game.
They were outplayed for all of the first half, and a good portion of
the 3rd, as the Pacers took  leads as high as 21 points.  The Celts
got back into the game by playing hustling defense (maybe the best
they've played the press in a month), but it was too late.   They were
unable to get any close than 5 points.

	The Celts got off to a very slow start shooting the ball, and
the Pacers took an 8-0 lead.  The Celts finally got things going, and
were helped by some sloppy Pacer's ballhandling.  The pulled to within
3 (18-15) an a Greg Minor 3 pointer.  the quarter ended with the
Pacers leading 22-17.  The Pacers were not called for a single
personal foul in the first quarter.

	The Celts offense fell apart again at the start of the second,
and their offense wasn't doing so great either.  The Pacers
did finally get called for a foul, early in the quarter.  The Pacers
outscored the Celts 18-7 over the first 8:00 of the quarter, taking a
40-24 lead.  The Pacers led at the halftime break, 47-32.

	As the 3rd quarter, started, Walker was getting more and more
frustrated at the lack of calls for the refs.  On the 2nd C's
possession of the period, Toine was banged heavily on the way to the
basket, and smothered,when he went to make the shot.  No call was
made, Walker was yelling at the refs as he ran back up the court, and
he was called for a T (Reggie Miller had already been called for a T
in the first half).  The Pacers took their biggest lead of the game at
61-40, with 5:50 to in the period.  The Celts fought back, behind some
strong play from Walter McCarty and Dana Barros.  The Celts ended the
quarter with a 21-8 run to cut the Pacers lead to 8, at 69-61.  The
Celts muffed a couple of good opportunities to  close the gap even
more at the end of the period.

	The Celts got a nice offensive contribution from Ron Mercer in
the 4th quarter and they were able to close to with 5 points (82-77),
with 4:45 to go.   Every time, though, that the Celts  got close,
either Jalen Rose or Antonio Davis would come up with a score.  The
Celts were still trailing by 5 at 88-83 with 2:00 to go.  But Rose
scored 5 unanswered points, to push the Pacers lead to 93-83.  The
final was 93-87.

	The Celts had a huge 24 shot advantage in their game (but the
Pacers took 18 more free throws).  The Pacers outshot the Celts .
508 to .404.  The Celts tried to make that up, with a 21-9 advantage
in offensive rebounds and a 24-21 advantage in turnovers caused.
While the Celts had 16 steals in the game, they were very sloppy with
the ball, as the Pacers hawked the ball 15 times.

Lineups:
Celts: Barros, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Pacers: Jackson, Miller, Mullin, D. Davis, A. Davis

Players:
Walker: for the second game in a row, Toine seemed to be a lost soul.
He shot 5-21, scored 14 points and had 4 boards and 4 turnovers in the
game (after his T, Pitino kept him on the bench for the rest of the
3rd quarter: he played a total of 35 minutes).  There is no doubt that
he's not getting the respect form the refs that he deserves, but Toine
is letting it effect his game to an unnecessary degree.  Toine was
reported as complaining of tendinitis in both knees.

Mercer: Ron came on big in the 4th quarter, and was able to score 18
points on 9-15 shooting.  He also had 5 boards and 4 assists in 42
minutes.  

Barros:  He didn't have the outside shot going, but he adjusted and
shot 7-13 on a variety of drives and midrange shots.  he also had 8
assists and 3 steals, but also 3 turnovers in 37 minutes.  He played
very determined defense against Mark Jackson, who tried to post Barros
several times, without much success (Jackson had a career high 10
turnovers in the game).

McCarty: got off to a slow start, and was shot poorly in the first
half.  But he came on strong in the second, especially on defense.  he
scored 13 (6-15), had 6 boards (all offensive), 4 assists and 4
steals.  He was a big factor in the Celts comeback in the second half.

Tabak: Probably his strongest game as a Celtic.  He scored 11 and had
9 boards in 25 minutes of playing time.  He was very strong under the
boards and on interior defense.  Early in the 3rd quarter, A. Davis
streaked by him for an easy hoop on the break.  Pitino called a
timeout and seemed to be berating him for letting Davis go by without
fouling him.  But he left Jan in the game, and a few minutes later,
nearly the same play occurred and Tabak just leveled Davis (it was
very close to a flagrant foul).

Minor: Played a very strong game from the floor and on defense.  he
scored 9 points, had 4 boards, 6 assists and 2 blocks in 30 minutes.
he hit a three tonight, but is actually shying away from trying the 12
to 15 foot shots that used to be his bread and butter, since he hasn't
made one of those shots in weeks.

DeClercq: Had 4 points and 5 boards in 14 minutes.  He did seem to
have a problem, with leaving Antonio Davis to help out on somebody
else.  The Pacers promptly found Davis for easy shots (he scored 28
points).   

Knight: couldn't score in 12 minutes, but did have 4 boards.  Travis
gets easily frustrated when his shot doesn't go in.

Edney: couldn't' hit anything from the floor at 0-4.  But he did have
4 assists and 2 steals in 11 minutes.  He also had 3 turnovers.

Coaching: The Celts had generally solved their slow start problems for
early in the season, but they fell into that bad habit again in this
game.  They didn't put much pressure on the Pacers starting unit, and
it wasn't until the second half that they fully committed to the
press.  When they did they had good results, but lost the game because
they couldn't take care of the ball themselves ( and the Pacers do not
pressure the ball at all).

The Celts are now 35 and 43 on the season.  They play on Tuesday in
Cleveland.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com