Spurs Edge Celts: San Antonio 97-Boston 88

[pvermilye@imageconversion.com (Peter Vermilye)]

Early on this game appeared to be a replay of the game, last
month in San Antonio.  The Spurs were running the court, and getting
easy looks at the basket, and the Celts were having to work for every
point they got.  But the Celts tightened up their transition defense,
and after trailing badly early in the game, were able to tie the
score with about 3:30 left in the game.  Down the stretch in was all
Spurs, though, as they ended the game with a 10-1 flurry.

	Early on, the Celts offense was brutal.  They didn't score their
first hoop of the game until the 7:00 minute mark, and were already 
down  14-6.  The Spurs got that lead up to 21-6, before the Celts
got aid from the unlikely source of John Thomas, who came into the game
after DeClercq and Knight had already accumulated 2 fouls apiece, and
scored 6 quick points for the Celts to make the score 23-12.  Dana
Barros did some nice work on the offensive end, as the period ended with
the C's down , 28-15.

	Things seemed to be getting worse, early in the second, as the
Spurs scored the first 7 points of the quarter to take a 35-15 lead.
Chauncey Billups responded with 7 points of his own and the score stood
at 38-24.  The Celtics defense began to tighted up, as they went on a 
12-2 run  to pull to within 5 at 41-36.  The Spurs ended the half with a 
6-0  run of their own to make the score 49-38.

	Basically for most of the 3rd quarter, the score fluctuated
around that 11 point lead.  The Celts got a nice pick'n roll from 
Barros and Knight to pull to within 7 (64-57), but the Spurs quickly
drove the lead back up to 11 (70-59).  Knight ended the quarter with 
a flurry  as the Celts pulled a little closer at 75-66.

	The Celts seemed to be turning up the defensive pressure,
throughout the 4th, but they couldn't get the offense to cooperate.
They were still trailing by 9 at 87-78 (about 5:00 to go), when Antoine
hit a 3 and started a 9-0 Celtics run, that tied the game for the
first time since the score was 2-2.  Walker hit 2 free throws to tie
the game at 87-87 with 3:30 left.  Unfortunatley the Celts offense
went missing at this point, as they were able to score just 1 point
in the closing 3:30.  The Spurs scored 10 and the final score of the 
game was 97-88

	What a difference home cooking makes.  After suffering a 
horrible differential at the free throw line the last couple of games
(Ok, so the game against the Sonics was in Boston), the Celts
attempted 35 free throws to just 26 for the Spurs (and more importantly,
hit 31 to the Spurs 17).  They also had 10 more offensive rebounds
and caused 9 more turnovers (22-13).  All that  wasn't enough to 
make up for a horrible field goal percent difference as the Spurs hit
37-70, while the Celts went 26-83 (ah-ha, found the calculator).  That's
.313 for Boston against .528 for the Spurs.  Looking at those numbers
it's a miracle that the score was even close.

Lineups:
Boston: Billups, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Spurs: Johnson, Jackson, Elliott, Duncan, Robinson

Players:
Billups: New career high in  points (and probably free throws
attempted and made) for Chauncey.  He hit 5-14 from the field,
most coming down the stretch.  Did most of his damage from the
free throw line where he was 13-15.  Had 4 assists, 2 steals,
but turned over the ball 5 times.  After all the success the C's
have had in containing opposition point guards they let
Avery Johnson get loose for 22 points and 11 assists.

Walker:  Another horrendous shooting game at 5-19, but he did 
hit 6-6 from the free throw line.  Nice job on the boards with 
14, and had 2 blocks.  Did a nice job on Duncan.

Mercer: 3-15, ouch!  Ron could not hit anything from further away than
5 feet.  Did have a huge jam, and went 4-5 on free throws.

McCarty: A non factor in the game, as he shot 0-4 in 18 minutes,
and No, he didn't get in foul trouble.  He did get banged up a little,
but I didn't hear that it was bad enough to keep him out of the game.

DeClercq: maybe the biggest upset of the night, as Andrew went 4-4
from the free throw line.  He scored 8 pts, and had 3 boards, 2 steals
and a block in 20 minutes.

Barros: Played very effectively with 7 points, 4 assists and a steal
in just 13 minutes.  Dana is playing the best ball of his career.

Knight: Travis played like a woos (?) in the first quarter.  He came
on very strong in the second half though, and ended the game with
8 points, 7 boards and 3 blocks in 24 minutes.  Had the same shooting
woes as the rest of the Celts at 4-11.

Thomas: He had those strong early moment in the 1st quarter, but was 
pretty quiet the rest of the way.  He scored 6 and had 3 boards in
11 minutes.

Minor: Got in the game, and played hard on defense, but didn't 
contribute much offensively.  Had 1 point and 4 boards in 10 minutes.

Rogers\Brown: DNP

Coaching: good to see the C's are able to stop the opposition's big
men from running.  So why don't they try doing it from the start of 
the game, before they get buried.

The Celts are now 16-19.  They play Vancouver this Thursday.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com