Sonics Crush Celtics: Seattle 111-Boston 92

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	And it wasn't that close.   I'm having a hard time getting
excited about writing up this game (that's why I'm a little late with
it: apologies) as it was a pretty bad loss for the C's.  I've been
trying to convince myself, that as presently configured the Celts are
going to make it through the season playing .500 or better ball, and
this game definitely did not fit that hypothesis.  The Sonics
absolutely demolished the Celts defense.  for the 3rd or 4th time this
season, it was demonstrated that if a opposing team's big men will
run, and they pass effectively the Celts pressing defense is not only
ineffective, it is an invitation to a lay-up drill.    My cable
provider didn't switch to the game, till after the first few seconds,
so I didn't hear the official reason that Pervis didn't play, but I
assume that it's related to the ankle injury he suffered in the
Washington game.

	Things were bad from the start.  The Sonics jumped out to
leads of 18-9 and 22-11, as Gary Payton, was cleverly avoiding traps,
passing up the court to Detlef Schrempf, who was distributing the
ball, mostly to Vin Baker for absurdly easy shots.  Jim McIlvaine got
some nice blocks on the defensive end to limit the Celts production,
and baker did a good job of denying the ball to Antoine in the low
post.  The Celts rallied slightly at the end of the quarter to close
the gap to 3 at 33-24.

	Pitino tried some experimentation at the start of the 2nd,
going with a no-center lineup.  Didn't make any difference as the
Sonics pulled ahead by 15 at 43-28 (unbelievably, Dale Ellis came into
the game and the Celts left him open on the perimeter).   Pitino gave
some minutes to the lesser used Celtics like Dee Brown and Travis
Knight and they both looked to be playing at a little higher tempo
that they have been recently.  Travis especially came in and hit a
couple shots to help the C's stay relatively close (i.e. threatening
to cut the Sonics lead to single digits was close in this game).
After a Mercer jumper with about 3:00 to go in the half the C's pulled
to within 13 (52-39).  But the Sonics closed the half with a flurry,
scoring 9 unanswered points to take a 64-44 lead.  Seattle shot 70% in
the first half.	

	The Sonics starters made a strong case for getting the rest of
the night off, by outscoring the Celts 10-4 tot start the 3rd, pushing
their lead up to 74-48.  Both teams traded baskets at about that level
for the rest of the quarter, and the Sonics led at the end 89-66.
Pitino tried out some more new lineup combination, with Thomas at the
PF spot while Knight playing center, which was reasonably effective.
Dee also played the point, with mixed effectiveness.

	The Sonics scored the first 6 of the 4th, threatening to blow
the lead up to 30 at 95-66.  The Celts were saved for that level of
ignominy by a Dana Barros 3.  By this time Karl had pulled all of his
starters and the sonics defensive intensity began to wane a bit.  The
Celts got hot from outside (6 3's in the quarter) and were able to cut
the lead to "just" 19 by the end of the game (111-92).

	2 huge reasons for the Celtics loss.  First, they got outshot
.609-.426.   Second, they only went to the free throw line 5 times in
the game, compared to 45 for the Sonics.  This completely overwhelmed
the Celts small advantage in the turnover (20-17) and offensive
rebound categories (12-6).

Lineups:
Celts: Billups, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Sonics: Payton, Hawkins, Schrempf, Baker, McIlvaine

Players:
Walker: After the scintillating game against the Wiz, Toine was back
to old tricks tonight.  He shot 6-17 (1-4 on threes), got 9 boards and
3 assists in 31 minutes.  He did hold his turnovers down with just 1.
Baker did a good job on Walker in the low post, making it tough for
Walker to receive that ball, and staying between Toine and the basket,
most of the time, then he did get it.  Toine tried some jumpers, both
medium range and 3's with very mixed success.  Disappointingly, Toine
refused to take the ball outside, and try to drive past the larger
Baker, which would have seemed to be the best way to go at him.

Mercer:  Had a nice shooting touch and in the first half was the only
effective Celtic offensive player.  Scored 14 on 7-14 shooting, but he
committed 4 turnovers in his 32 minutes.

McCarty: Another brutal night from the field at 3-11.  He had 7
points, 2 assists and just 1 board in 22 minutes.

Billups: Mixed bag.  Once again a solid opposing point didn't really
hurt the Celtics badly (though this overlooks Payton's very competent
negotiation of the press).  And Billups had 7 assists and 0 turnovers
in 26 minutes.  It's hard to overlook the 1-10 shooting and the 4
points, thought.  I think that team are playing Chauncey for that
little right handed floater he puts up when he drives.

Knight: Best game since he came back off the IR.  He shot 10-16,
scored 21 points and had 10 boards in 31 minutes.   His offense came
in a variety of ways, as he hit a three, some medium range jumpers,
and made a couple of nice drives to the basket.

Thomas: got 20 minutes tonight, as he seems to be rising the in C's
big man depth chart at a rapid rate.  He scored 8 points and had a
couple of assists, but didn't gather a single rebound.

DeClercq: got the start, but only played for 4 minutes, as he quickly
collected 3 fouls.

Brown:  Also got his most minutes (18) since the stint on the IR,
including extended time at the point guard position.  His shot wasn't
on at all (0-3: all deep jumpers), but he did collect 5 assists as 2
steals, and played with a nice level of energy.

Barros: Hit 4 three pointers in the 4th quarter, when the Celts were
so far out of it, it wouldn't have mattered if they counted for 6.  He
played for 24 minutes, and had 14 pts. and 1 assists.  One of his
threes was from so far out it should have counted for 6.

Rogers: got in the game for 3 minutes. I don't want to raise the ire
of the Roy-a-philes (That's you, Gene), but Roy must be doing
something powerfully wrong in practice to get the treatment from
Pitino that he's receiving.

Coaching: Pitino is going to say,after a game like this, that the
Celts didn't execute his defense properly.  He pretty much has to say
that, as he has to sell his system to the players.  but I don't think
it's the case.  The Sonics are a very alert, professional team, and
they just shredded the C's defense with excellent passing (they had
assists on 27 out of 39 baskets, many of them layups and jams).  I'm
unconvinced that a good NBA team can't defeat Pitino's defense, and
exploit it for easy baskets.
			
	On the other hand, (every cloud has a silver lining) some of
the Celts end-benchers did get to shake off a bit of the rust (I'm
thinking of Travis and Dee here especially).  Hopefully this will pay
off in the future.

Opposition Players of Note: Rightfully so, the Sonics who get the ink
are Payton and Baker, who are fine players in the prime of their
careers.  I'd just like to point out what a wonderful cast of solid
veterans the Sonics have accumulated in Schrempf, Hawkins, Ellis and
Perkins.  These guys are all older players, who have superb
understanding of the game, and their place in it.  

The Celts now sink beneath the .500 level at 16-17.  They play again
Saturday night against the Magic (in Orlando).

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com

P.S. Sorry, about the tone of this post.  Hopefully this is an
aberration (both my mood and the team's play).