Nuggets (????) Beat C's with Ease: Denver 112- Boston 99

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	For the first time this season the Celts lost a game, that it
honestly seemed that they should have won.  The Nuggets played very
smart basketball, and exploited a lot of the Celtic's weaknesses, both
on offense and defense.  The Celts abetted the Nuggets by putting in a
lethargic defensive performance, which caused a lot of turnovers, but
also resulted in many uncontested shots.

	The Celts got off to a horrible start in the game.    They
were only able to score 6 points in the first 6:00 of the game, and
fell behind the Nuggets 19-6.  The Celts were especially lax in their
transition defense as they allowed the Nuggets to get behind them for
a number of easy shots.  Pitino called a timeout and replaced all his
starters except for Walker.  The subs came in and upped the defensive
intensity, and were able to slow the Denver onslaught (?).  The Celts
caused a bunch of turnovers and were able to end the quarter with a
6-2 run to close the gap to 5 at 24-19.

	Although it seemed that the Celts would surely close the gap
and take the lead, in fact they seemed to lose some of the defensive
intensity they ended the first quarter with.  Johnny Newman came into
the game and hit some shots to balance off strong shooting by Dee
Brown.  The Nuggets pushed the lead back up to 7.  Neither team could
get much done offensively towards the end of the quarter, but Anthony
Goldwire hit a long three  to give the Nuggets a 48-38 lead heading
into the half.

	Surely, I thought to myself, Pitino will grab these guys by
the throat at halftime and get them to come out and play up to speed.
Uh, no.  The Nuggets opened the second half with a 6-2 run to push the
lead up to 14.   The Celts closed the lead to 9 (54-45), but the
Nuggets responded with a 17-8 run, scoring on 8 consecutive
possessions.  That put Denver up 71-53.  Pitino called timeout and
made the same mass substitution that he made in the first quarter.
Hanzlick responded by replacing Lafonso Ellis with Johnny Newman.
Newman won (he'd score 25 2nd half points).  The Celts did manage to
slow the Nuggets down and closed the lead to 13 at 78-65.

	The Nuggets opened the 4th quarter with a 7-0 run to push the
lead to 20 and put the game out of reach (85-65).   A few moments
later they got another 6-0 run together to take their game high lead
of 91-68.   With the score at 96-74, the Celts went in to full
pressing, scrambling mode and started to get some easy shots for
Mercer and Billups.  The Celts scored 25 points in the last 6:00 of
the game, but only cut the Denver lead to 13, making the final 112-99.

	The stats from this game are startling.  The Celts attempted
35 more shots than the Nuggets and even tried one more free throw.
With the equivalent of an extra halves worth of shots the Celts
squandered that advantage by shooting .340 while they allowed the
Nuggets (who are shooting 41% on the season) to shoot .597.  The Celts
really didn't try that many 3's (3-15), and they hit their free throws
fairly well (30-41).  They just couldn't convert on their two point
opportunities.  They built that 35 shot advantage, by earning a 14
turnover differential, and by getting 29 offensive boards to the
Nuggets 11.

Lineups:
Celts: Billups, Brown, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Nuggets: Jackson, Washington, Ellis, Battie, Garrett

Players:
Walker: There's not a lot of good you can say about anyone, in a game
like this, but Antoine had a very tough game tonight.  He shot 5-22,
had 9 boards, 4 assists and 2 turnovers.  I swear that Tony Battie
must have blocked Toine's shot at least 5 times in the game,  maybe
more.  Battie wouldn't play Walker real close, instead he laid off him
by a foot or so.  When Toine tried to shoot his turn around, Battie
would just reach up and swat the ball away at the shot's release
point.  He was probably standing on the court for most of those
blocks.  Toine got 6 offensive rebounds but probably only converted 1
of those into baskets.

Mercer: Ended up the game with a respectable looking line, 18 points
(7-18), 4 assists and 2 steals.  Most of those points came in the 4th
quarter, after the Nuggets had gotten their big lead.  During the
first 3 quarters Mercer was relatively ineffective.

Billups: I'm sure that Bobby Jackson has heard all too much about
Chauncey since he went to Colorado, and seemed to be up for this game.
Billups, on the other hand, seemed to be pressing, and had one of his
weaker games out of the last 2 months.  Chauncey was held to just 3
points over the first 3 quarters, and only got his game going in the
last half of the 4th, when it was all over.  He did end up with 15
points, 8 boards, 3 assists and 1 turnover.

McCarty: didn't shoot the ball to well at 4-11, and didn't defend to
well (Ellis and Newman combined for 55 points: obviously not all of
that was McCarty).   The Celts rarely pressed when the first unit was
in, which certainly limits Walter's effectiveness.

Brown: continued his recent hot shooting in the first half.  Hanzlick
cam up with a brilliant solution.  He told his defensive guy
(Washington) to cover Dee's outside shot.  Result: Dee shot 1-2 in the
2nd half.  Dee scored 11 points on 5-7 shooting.  he did have one nice
drive to the basket.

DeClercq: Probably the only Celtic who played with his normal level of
energy tonight.  DQ scored 10 (2-6) and had 9 boards in 29 minutes
(just 3 fouls).

Barros: He scored 10 and had 3 assists (but also 3 turnovers: the only
C to have that many).  He only hit on 2-8 shots and did not play up to
his recent standards.

Knight: another low energy evening>  2 points, and 5 boards in 19
minutes.  

Bowen: only got 14 minutes as Pitino was desperately searching for
offense.  Actually shot 3-3.

Thomas: only got 10 minutes (why).  Hit 1-4 for 5 points and had 3
boards.

Minor: got 8 minutes in the 4th quarter.  Scored 2 and had 3 fouls.

Edney: wasn't even good enough to play tonight.

Coaching: if you didn't know better, you would think that Hanzlick was
the bright young coach, and that Pitino was the guy on the hot seat,
off this game.  The Nuggets had a very nice game plan, essentially
forcing the Celts to play in half court, sagging down on Antoine, and
playing very honest, steady defense against all the other C's.  They
were very definitely playing off DeClercq to double Walker, and
Antoine was having a tough time finding DQ (since Andrew essentially
camped out so close to the basket that he brought his man to Walker
anyway).  On offense the Nuggets took very good shots, penetrating to
the 12-15 foot area, and then either shooting, or passing the ball
back out to the perimeter for jumpers.  The Nuggets got a huge
percentage of their shots off uncontested (as much due to the Celts
lethargic defense as any strategy).

The Celts play next on Thursday night in Utah.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com