L.B., Pacers Edge Celts: Indiana 103-Boston 96

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	Big day at the Fleet center, and, to be honest, contrary to my
expectations, the Celts played pretty well against Larry's Pacers (who
have had the best record in the league since their 3-4 start).  The
Celts got better ball movement than they've displayed in a long time,
and got a big offensive contribution from Andrew DeClercq to make the
game close.  But, in the end, the Pacers were too much for the Celts.

	The Celtics opened the game showing clear signs of having used
the 2 day lay-off to prepare for this game.  Antoine Walker displayed
some of the variety in his game, with some fine passes helping the C's
to take a 13-8 lead.  Walker was able to take advantage of Dale Davis
on the perimeter.  Rik Smits played effectively , and got the Pacers
back into the game.  With 5:30 to go in the period, Walter McCarty
fouled Smits, injuring his hand (Rik's, that is).  The Celtics offense
ran aground and they fell behind 27-19.  The Celts got a nice burst of
energy from Dee and Dana to end the quarter with a 7-0 run to cut the
lead to 1, at 27-26 as the quarter closed.

	L.B. started 5 bench players in the second period, but got
some offense from Jalen Rose.  Chauncey Billups played well st the
start of the period, and got the Celts  a tie at 31-31.  The Celts
forged ahead on the strength of strong offensive rebounding from
Andrew DeClercq (6 points off offensive boards in the period) as the
Celts built a 49-41 lead.  The Pacers went to Smits at the end of the
quarter and closed with a 6-0 run to make the score 53-52 (in the
Celts favor) at the end of the half.

	The Pacers starters came out strong at the start of the 3rd
(especially Smits again) and pushed their lead up to 10 points at
67-57, and again at 74-64.  The Celts got help of the bench again,
from Travis Knight and Dee Brown and worked their way back into the
game, trailing by just 4, 78-74 at the end of the quarter.

	Larry went with his bench to start the 4th (just as in the
second) and they again had difficulty with the Celt's pressing
defense.  The Celts had trouble executing on offense and were unable
to really take advantage.  With 4:11 to go in the game they still
trailed by 5, 89-84.  Walker got a three point play to pull the Celts
to within 2 at 91-89, and after Reggie Miller hit a couple of free
throws, Billups drove to the basket and scored and DeClercq hit a pair
of free throw to tie the game with 2:00 to go.  At this point the
Celts offense just shut down, and the Pacers got a huge three pointer
under intense defensive pressure, from Reggie (97-93).  After Walker
failed to score on a drive, Miller beat Dee Brown back door to hit a
lay-up and give the Pacers a 99-93 lead with 58 seconds left.  The
Celts fouled to try to get back in the game, but the Pacers hit their
free throws and won the game 103-96.  

	The Celts shot a very surprising .457 from the field (I
suspect this is due to the Pacers defense as much as anything), but
the Pacers shot better at .507.  But the  Celts didn't enjoy their
usual advantage in shots taken (well, they took 9 more, but the Pacers
took 8 more free throws).  While the Celts did get 6 more offensive
rebounds, the Celts actually had more turnovers than the Pacers, 16-13
(that's what the ESPN boxscore has, I'm not so sure that's accurate).
Certainly, whatever damage the Celts press did do, they pretty much
negated through sloppiness.  In genreal the Pacers were able to
dictate the temp of the game.

Lineups:
Celts: Billups, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Pacers: Jackson, Miller, Mullen, D.Davis, Smits

Players:
Walker: Very mysterious game for Toine.  Either he knew he was on
national TV and decided early in the game to clean up his act a little
or Pitino got on him about his shot selection and lack of passing the
last couple of days.  Hopefully it was the latter.  Anyway, Toine
threw 3 of his best half dozen or so passes of the season in the first
half, and didn't appear to be looking for his shot at all.  He didn't
reach double figures until well into the 4th quarter.  One of the refs
called traveling on Toine at least 3 times.  Late in the game the
Celts tried to go to Walker with mixed success: Derrick McKey did a
more than fair job of defending him.  Walker ended up with 16 points
on 5-18 shooting, 8 boards ,6 assists (that must be his highest assist
total in the last 6 weeks) and 5 turnovers.

Mercer: had the shot working tonight.  Really seems to get up for
games against the well known 2 guards in the league (or maybe the well
known 2 guards don't play that much "D" anymore).  Anyway he scored 21
points and shot 8-15 from the field, before fouling out in the closing
moments of the game.  Played 35 minutes tonight, including extended
time at the small forward position.

DeClercq: New career high for Andrew in points with 17 (I suspect a
few other categories as well).  In the second quarter he did a really
good job of beating Smits to the offensive boards and scored 10
points.  He also had 9 boards, 2 steals and a block in his 29 minutes.
had the consecutive free throw streak stopped at 8, but came back and
hit 5 more in a row afterwards (putting him at 13-14 over the last 3
games).  If DeClercq can keep to just 3 fouls for every 29 minutes of
playing time (as he did in this game) and hit 80% of his free throws,
he'll play in this league as long as his body holds out.

Billups: got fooled a couple of times by Jackson, and had an unusual 5
turnovers.  he did hit some shots and scored 14 . but did not seem to
be looking for teammates when he penetrated like he did against
Vancouver.  Just 2 assists in 24 minutes and 6-14 shooting.

McCarty: What's going on here.  A month ago McCarty was shooting the
lights out and looked like he might be a long term starter.  All of a
sudden he's barely playing (just 17 minutes tonight).  If he did
anything in particular to warrant Rick's wrath, I missed it.  Scored 4
points in his 17 minutes.

Brown: Most playing time for Dee since early in the season.  Got 22
minutes and shot 3-4 for 6 points.  Let Miller out of the cage a
little at the end of the game, but didn't do a bad job, overall.

Barros: Another solid game for Barros, with 10 points,  6 assists and
a pair of turnovers in 21 minutes.  Seems boring to keep repeating the
same thing over and over again, but Dana might be the most consistent
offensive player on the team right now (which is certainly not saying
much) .

Bowen: got shuttled into the game whenever the guy guarding Miller
fouled, fouled himself and immediately got shuttled back out.  5 fouls
in 7 minutes.

Knight: played with some enthusiasm and aggression.  Scored 6 points,
had 4 boards and 3 blocks in 16 minutes.  Made a really nice play on
Mark Jackson on a break away layup in the 3rd quarter (Jackson must be
the slowest point in the history of the league these days).

Thomas: Flat out nothing in 7 minutes.  Very surprising to me after
the last game he played.

Minor: Horrific game shooting the ball.  1-6 in 14 minutes.  Actually
played reasonably well besides that. 

Edney: An actual Tyus sighting.  I assume this means that Rogers is on
the IR again.  Amazing how these guys who never play keep getting
banged up.

Coaching:
Rick: Coaching the Celts from an offensive standpoint must just be a
nightmare.  There is no one on the team, besides Barros who displays
any consistency at all.  No one Pitino can depend on to get anything
done on a given night.
	It was pretty amazing to me that after the unbelievable free
throw differentials of the last couple of weeks, the Celts only got
called for 27 fouls in this game, while the Pacers got called for 23
(and that was with several intentional fouls by the Celts at the end
of the game).  If I were the kind of person who thought that way, I
might think that the league got a hold of the refs and told them to
cool it on national TV.

Larry: There was big spread in the NY Times today about the wonderful
job L.B. has been doing as coach of the Pacers, especially how well
he's relating to the players.  Walton and Jones certainly echoed that
line, though from the accuracy of their comments on the Celts, I'm not
sure they even follow the league, except to talk to the coaching staff
the night before they do a game..
	As far as the style of the team goes, they play much the way
you would expect a Bird team to.  They are very deliberate on offense
and very conscious of taking quality shots.  On the other hand, there
really doesn't seem to be anyone on the team who plays well on both
ends of the court (except maybe Jalen Rose, who was very impressive).
Despite the solid regular season record the Pacers are compiling, I
don't see these guys doing much damage in the playoffs even if they
stay healthy.

The Celts are now 17-20.  They play again tomorrow evening in New
York.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com