Cavs Thump Celts: Cleveland 95-Boston 86

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts (other than Walker and Mercer), couldn't throw the
ball in Lake Erie last night.  They wasted a gigantic advantage in
shots taken (even allowing for the normal disadvantage in free
throws). 

	The Celts and Walker got off to a fast start in the first
quarter.  The C's jumped out to a 12-6 lead (with Toine accounting for
8 of those points).  Both teams were extremely sloppy with the ball
early (in fact for the entire first half).  The Cavs came back with a
6-0 run to tie the game at 12-12.  Both offenses were extremely anemic
over the last 6 minutes of the quarter, but the Celts came out on top
22-19.

	The Celts temporarily pushed that lead up to 26-21 at the
start of the 2nd.  The Cavs came back with a 17-2 run to take a ten
point lead (and pretty much take control of the game).   The Celts
were trailing 46-38 at the end of the half, as each team had 14
turnovers in the first quarter.

	The Celts came out with a  more spirited style of play in the
second half.  Travis Knight, who had played sparingly in the first
half, injected some energy into the game, and the Celts were able to
cut down on their turnovers dramatically (they only had 2 in the
second half).   The Celts cut the lead to 4 at 52-48, and then with
about 3:00 to go in the period, a pair of Barros free throws pulled
the C's to within 1 point at 60-59. On the next C's possession Walker
put in an offensive rebound to give the Celts the lead at 61-60.
The lead was extremely short lived, though, as the Cavs responded with
a 9-4 run, to allow them to end the quarter with a 69-66 lead.

	The Celts pulled to within 2 points at the start of the 4th,
on a Ron Mercer conventional three point play (75-73).  The Cavs once
again responded with a 15-7 run to push their lead back out to 10
(90-80).  With about 3:30 to go in the game, Walker leaped awkwardly,
trying to put back an errant Barros shot, and hurt his leg badly
enough that he had to leave the game.    Derrick Anderson, who seemed
to take delight in seeking out his former teammates and scoring
over\around\through them, scored more than enough points to keep the
Celts at bay.  The final score was 95-86.

	Walker shot 14-23, and Mercer shot 10-25 (that's 24-48
combined.  The rest of the Celts shot 12-41 (29%).  That resulted in a
.517-.396 disadvantage in FG%.  That, combined with an advantage of
40-17 in free throws taken, was enough to outweigh a huge 91-58 Celtic
advantage in shots taken.  The Celts had a 17-9 advantage in offensive
rebounds and  a 24-16 edge in turnovers caused.  

Lineups:
Celts: Barros, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, Tabak
Cavs: Knight, Person, Henderson, Kemp, Ilgauskas

Players:
Walker: had a very strong game tonight, after two sub-par games in a
row.  He shot 14-23 (31 points), and had 14 boards (9 offensive).  He
also had 4 assists, 2 steals and 4 turnovers.  For portions of the
game, Walker was guarded by the Cav's rookie Cedric Henderson, who
just didn't have a chance against Toine.

Mercer: Shot a relatively poor 10-25 (though that was still above the
C's average for the game).  He scored 22 points, and had 7 boards, 3
assists and 3 steals.  Mercer played 47 minutes in the game.

Barros: had a rough night shooting the ball.  He 4-15 from the field
as well as 1-7 from the 3 point arc.  He did a decent job handling the
ball, with 7 assists and 1 turnover (he probably would have had more
if some of his teammates were hitting some shots).

McCarty: played with a lot of energy, but wasn't hitting the long
shots.  He had 5 points on 2-8 shooting in 37 minutes.

Tabak: got the start, but was ineffective.  He shot 1-4 for 2 points
and had 1 board (2 blocks) in 22 minutes.  I thought that he did a
decent job of clogging the inside (at least against Ilgauskas) but
that his presence inhibited the Celts from playing their pressure
defense (since he can't move well enough to double).  

Knight: only played for 13 minutes (just 1 minute in the first half).
he played with some energy and had 2 points and 3 blocks.

Minor: played for 21 minutes, and was fairly effective, though, Pitino
got on his case when he let Sura beat him to a rebound and then let
Bobby drive around him.  Minor had 6 points in 21 minutes.

Edney: played fairly well, with 5 points and 3 assists in 13 minutes.
Actually shot a 3 in the game.  It went about halfway down the hoop,
and then rimmed out.

DQ: his lowest playing time in many games.  Drew played for 10 minutes
and had 1 point, 2 boards and 4 fouls.

Coaching: The two coaches in this game, should be the leading
candidates for coach of the year.  I imagine that Pitino will win
it,but you have to have a lot of respect for the job that Fratello had
done.  I don't imagine many folks picked the Cavs to finish over .500
this year, much less win close to 50.

The Celts are now 35-44.  The Celts host the Bucks Wednesday night.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com