Wiz Whomp Celts: Washignton 112-Boston 95

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	To be brutally honest, except for about 6 minutes on either
side of halftime the Celts got clobbered in this contest.  The C's
were trailing 43-31 with 6 minutes to go in the 2nd quarter, and put
on a 34-17 run to take a 5 point lead.  After that it was pretty much
lights out for the Celts as the Wiz outscored them 32-12 to retake
total control of the contest.  If I were a Wizards fan (perish the
thought), I don't know if I'd be ecstatic that this group of wastrels
has finally started to reach their potential or nauseous that a team
this talented only won 42 games.

	The Wiz came out in the first quarter playing very intense
defense and using that play to fuel their offense.  The play of
Calbert Cheany against Mercer and Juwan Howard against Walker was
particularly notable.  The Wiz jumped out to a 14-9 lead.  Pitino was
running players on and off the court, in an attempt to find someone
who could hit a shot, but to no avail, until Tyus Edney hit a couple
of shots at the end of the quarter, to help the C's stay within
shouting distance.  The Wiz lead at the end of the period, 25-17.

	Things got bleaker for the C's at the outset of the 2nd, as
the Wiz came out red hot.  They scored on their first 6 possessions of
the quarter on their way to establishing a 36-21 lead.  Finally Walter
McCarty got hot for the Celts and helped them to outscore the Wiz 9-3
(Walter had 7 of the 9 points) as the C's got the lead below double
figures. (39-30).    Energized by Walter and Tyus Edney, the Celts
ended the quarter with an 18-7 run to pull to within a point (50-49)
at the close of the half.

	The 2 teams traded baskets at the start of the third, before
the Celts put together a 9-0 run to take a 65-60 lead.  Bernie
Bickerstaff called a couple of timeouts, and got his charges back into
the game mentally.  From then on, it was no contest.  the Wiz closed
the quarter with a 17-3 run as they took control of the game with an
81-72 3rd quarter lead.

	The Wiz extended their lead to 15 early in the 4th at 92-77.
The Celts began to creep back, and on 2 plays with about 6 minutes to
go in the quarter, Howard and Webber each picked up their 5th fouls of
the game, while the C's pulled to within 10 points.  But Tracy Murray
put all thought of a rally away, when he hit 3's on consecutive
possessions to  push the Washington lead back up to 16 at 101-85.  The
final was 112-95.

	The most disappointing stat of the game (from the Celt's
perspective) has to be that the Wiz only had 8 turnovers.  This from a
team playing without a real point guard (Whitney is more of a 1 and a
half).  The Celts had 11 of their own.  The C's did do a good job on
the offensive boards with a 15-6 advantage, but the resulting 6 more
shots they took was hardly enough to overcome the .554-.430 Wiz
advantage in field goal percentage.

Lineups:
Celts: Barros, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, Tabak
Wiz: Whitney, Cheaney, Howard, Webber, Wallace

Players:
Mercer: after a slow start, due to Cheaney's defense, Ron came back
and had a pretty good game.  He didn't press, and hit on 7-13 shots
and scored 18 points in 32 minutes of playing time.  maybe all he
needed to do was be a little more selective in the shots he took.

Walker: the Wiz (Howard) fronted him for much of game, and Toine did
not get off his usual compliment of shots.  He was 8-18, and had 13
boards and 5 assists.  He pretty much had to get those boards as the
Celts 3 centers combined for 4 defensive rebounds the whole night.

McCarty: typical night from Walter.  He had that one stretch in the
2nd where he couldn't miss, and still ended up shooting 5-14.  He did
play a nice floor game, pulling down 8 boards and getting 4 assists in
40 minutes.

Barros: Scored 12 points on 4-10 shooting, but only had 2 assists.
The Wiz put pretty heavy pressure on Dana for most of the game.

Edney: Another pretty decent game from Tyus, as he had 10 points and 4
assists in 17 minutes.  He still feels like he has to get something
done every single time he touches the ball, but, with his new found
jumper, at least he can do it some of the time.

Minor: I thought that Greg, after a string of pretty good games, was a
bit off tonight.  He's been having good success putting the ball on
the floor, but he didn't do that at all in this game.    He also
didn't seem as aggressive on defense as he has been.  He did hit
another 3, and had 8 points in 27 minutes.

Tabak: A little better game for Zan, who had 9 points and 4 boards in
19 minutes.   Still nothing to write home to Croatia about.

DeClercq: I'm sure that Andrew needs the rest.  He had 4 points and 4
boards in 16 minutes tonight.

Knight: Didn't play well this evening.  Didn't score and had 1 board
in 12 minutes.  Bad Hands Day.

Jones: The old Dantae' is baack.  He logged 2 minutes and took 3 shots
(all missed).

Coaching: One of the worse nights of the season for the C's pressing
defense.  They got the bad part (lots of fouls and high opposition
FG%) without the good (many turnovers leading to easy baskets for the
Celts).

The Celts end the season 36-46.  

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com

P.S. this is the end of another season, but one that has had more
promise than any the Celts have had this decade.  I've enjoyed doing
these game summaries as usual, and would like to thank everyone who
helped out, and of course all those who sent me kind comments and
constructive corrections.  May we all be together (at least in
C-space) when they hoist number 17.