Jazz Crush Celts: Utah 118-Boston 100

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts, obviously smarting from the loss against the
Nuggets, mixed up the lineup a bit tonight, starting John Thomas and
Travis Knight in place of Andrew DeClercq and Walter McCarty.
Whatever the reason, the Celts got off to a brilliant start, playing
their best offensive ball in the first half.  Unfortunately, having
gained the Jazz attention, they proved incapable of withstanding the
increased scrutiny, and were overwhelmed in the 2nd half.

	With their revised lineup and some strong shooting for Dee
Brown the Celts were able to break out to an 18-8 lead.  The Celts big
guys assiduously fronted Malone and kept him under control in the
early going.  The Jazz came back with a 10-2 run to pull to within 2
at 20-18.  Hornacek got into foul trouble, and when Howard Eisley came
into the game to spell Stockton, Pitino sprang the press. The Celts
caused turnovers on 5 straight possessions and more importantly cashed
4 of them in for scores as they put together an 11-0 run to take a
31-18 lead into the 2nd.  Ron Mercer was a big spark in this stretch
as the Celts caused the Jazz to turn the ball over 10 times in the
first quarter.

	Andrew Declercq stole the ball on the first play of the second
quarter.  He then preceded to make bonehead plays on the next 3
possessions (2 fouls and 1 turnover).  The fouls would cost the Celts
before the end of the quarter.  But first the Celts went on another
10-2 run to push their lead up to 18 at 41-23, with continued strong
play from Mercer.  In general the Celts were extremely aggressive
taking the ball to the basket and taking very good shots.   With a
little more than 5:00 to go in the half Thomas picked up his 3rd foul,
and Pitino had to go to McCarty to cover Malone.  The Jazz immediately
homed in on the Malone-McCarty matchup, and it resulted in 6 free
throws for Malone, 2 illegal defense technicals and a Greg Foster 3
point play off a feed from Malone.  The Jazz closed the lead to 11 at
50-39.  Mysteriously the Jazz went away from the matchup and the Celts
where able to push their margin back up to 15, at 58-45 at the end of
the half.

	The Jazz came out charging at the start of the 3rd (natch).
They turned up the defensive pressure and began to counter the Celts
defensive pressure by cutting backdoor.  After Hornacek missed the
first shot of the half, the Jazz went on to convert on their next 8
possessions.  The Celts responded offensively though, and still
manages to maintain a 9 points lead (70-61).  Ominously, most of the
Jazz scores were coming from short range, while the C's where hitting
jumpers.  At this point, the refs threw a riot,as they gave out
technicals to Sloan (his 2nd), Malone and Walker over 4 possessions.
The Celts long guns fell silent and the Jazz quickly put together a
13-2 run to take their first lead of the game (74-73).  The Jazz kinda
paused in their onslaught, to catch their breath, and the Celts where
able to stay within 1 points at the end of the quarter 82-81).

	The Jazz just overwhelmed the Celts in all phases of the game
at the start of the 4th.  They outscored the Celts 28-9 over the first
8:30 of the quarter to take a commanding 110-90 lead.  Over the last
6:00 of the 3rd and the first 8:30 of the 4th, the Celts were
outscored 47-19.  At this point, Pitino surrendered, and emptied the
bench.  The game ended with the  score at 118-100.

	After outshooting the Jazz in the first half, the Celts ended
up on the short end of the FG% stat .582-.442.  After the 10 first
quarter turnovers, the Jazz ended the game with 20, while the C's
finished with 17.  That small advantage, together with 6 more Celtic's
offensive rebounds didn't come close to compensating for the
difference in shooting.  

Lineups:
Celts: Billups, Brown, Walker, Thomas, DeClercq
Jazz: Stockton, Hornacek, Keefe, Malone, Foster

Players:
Walker: The move to the small forward spot was not beneficial to
Antoine.  Basically he took his man down into the paint and got to try
to shoot over him and the Jazz big men.  It was much harder for him to
lose guys like Keefe and Russell on the perimeter or to drive past
him.  Why didn't Pitino stay with his normal lineup and switch Walker
to the Jazz centers and let the C's big men contest Malone?  All he
accomplished by playing the C's big guys at the power forward spot was
to cause them to waste their fouls against other players, besides
Malone.  Walker scored 15 (6-18), had 9 boards and 3 turnovers in 41
minutes.

Billups: I thought that Chauncey played very good defense against
Stockton, especially in the first quarter.  It played a big role in
the poor Jazz offensive performance early.  Chauncey scored 15, had 9
assists and 3 turnovers in 30 minutes.

Mercer: Ron had a great game of the bench, maybe from a technical
point of view, his best game of the year.  He drove to the basket
often, passing on the midrange jumper.  He scored 24 points, getting
to the line 8 times, even though his jumper wasn't going that great.

Brown: Early in the game, he continues his hot shooting (he had 12 of
his 15 points in the first half).  He cooled off in the second, and
ended up shooting 4-10, for 15 points.  He also played a nice floor
game.  He drove to the basket a couple of times, and had a wonderful
block on one of the Jazz big guys on a fast break situation.

Thomas: A few weeks ago, I expressed the opinion that Thomas would do
a reasonably good defensive job against Malone.  Obviously I was a
little of the mark, as Karl had 31 in the game.  Basically the refs
took Thomas out of it with 4 fouls in 9 minutes.  Early on the C's did
a decent job against Malone (he had 6 points midway through the 2nd
quarter).  After Pitino had to try to match him with McCarty, it
seemed to get Malone going, and  the Celts couldn't get him shut off
again.  I didn't think that Malone's success was all the fault of the
C's big guys, as the C's were incapable of keeping the Jazz from
swinging the ball around the perimeter, and exposing the C's front to
an easy passing angle.

Knight: Actually not too bad a game, as he scored 7, but had 9 boards,
2 steals and a block in 29 minutes.

DeClercq: played very hard when he was in there, but couldn't stay
away from the stupid fouls, picking up 5 in just 15 minutes, most of
them in situations where they did not help the Celts on defense.  He
scored 6 points, had 7 boards, and 2 steals.

Barros: seems to have fallen off his recent standard of play.   He
scored 10 and had 2 assists in 18 minutes.  Maybe other teams have
adjusted to his new style of play, but he's hasn't penetrated at all
in the 2 games since the All Star break.

McCarty: Only got into the game when Pitino ran out of big guys, and,
although he certainly gave it a game effort, was totally overmatched.
Didn't score and picked up 3 fouls in 14 minutes.

Bowen: also something of an afterthought, getting just 13 minutes in
the game.

Minor: came into the game at the end of the 2nd quarter and made a
couple of nice plays.  he got a total of ten minutes and scored 6.

Edney: DNP

Coaching: The Edney embargo continues.  If Pitino won't play Tyus,
even when the Celts are trailing by 20 points with 2 minutes to go,
why doesn't he infect Tyus with the flu (or some other appropriate
disease) and get one of the guys off the IR that he will play (of
course maybe he dislikes Jones and Rogers just as much).  It's hard to
believe that Roy wouldn't have come in handy tonight.

The Celts play again tonight, vs. the Kings.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com