Celts Fall Short: Charlotte 97- Boston 95

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts probably played a little better against the Hornets
than they did in the win against the Whiz.  They didn't get quite as
many bounces, and, of course, the Hornets are a little better team
than the Whiz.  That and a solid night from David Wesley was enough to
cost the C's the game.

	In the first quarter both team were rather streaky.  The Celts
pulled ahead 13-10 on Ron Mercer's conventional 3 point play.  After
the Hornets had regained the lead at 14-10, the Celts ran off 7
straight points to take a 20-14 lead.  The Hornets came back with 5
straight to tend the quarter trailing by 1 at 22-21.  Antoine Walker
played very well in the first quarter.

	Early in the 2nd, Dana Barros was very effective, helping the
Celts to take a 26-21 lead.  Pitino pulled both Walker and Barros out
of the game and the C's offense just fell apart.  The Hornets went on
a 12-0 run (with Wesley accounting for 8 of the points) as the C's
fell behind 33-26.  Pitino got Barros and Walker back into the game
and the Celts were able to come back and retake the lead at 36-34.
The Hornet forged back into the lead at 47-42.  In what looked like
good fortune for the Celts, but may have been a setback in reality,
Walker hit a 3 from about 25 feet to close out the half with the Celts
trailing 47-45.  Wesley scored 14 points in the 2nd quarter, while
Walker had 18 points and 8 boards in the first half.  The tempo very
much favored the Hornets.

	Rick Pitino was obviously very concerned about slowing down
David Wesley to start the second half.  In the meantime, though, the
Hornets (without much of a contribution from Wes at all) managed to
put together a 12-0 run to build a 59-48 lead.  Pitino was so
concerned about Wesley that he even replaced Billups with Bruce Bowen
at the point for about 2 minutes.   With the tempo very slow, and the
Hornets pounding the ball inside, the Hornets were able to take a
72-63 lead into the 4th quarter.  After his fine first half, Walker
resorted to shooting the outside shot, and scored 5 in the quarter.

	The Celts got off to a good start in the 4th, as Walker
returned to his form of the first half, and Ron Mercer, who had been
dreadful in the first half, started to come back to his normal level
of play.  The Celts came back to tie the game at 77-77. the Hornets
responded with a 6-0 run to retake the lead.   The Hornets still led
by the about the same amount (90-83) with 4:00 to go in the game.
Dana Barros (finally back into the game after sitting out the first 18
minutes of the second half) scored 2 baskets and Walker added a mid
range jumper to tie the game at 90-90 (1:53).  After Mason put in 1
free throw, DeClercq put back and errant Ron Mercer shot to get the
Celts their first lead of the second half at 92-91 (1:12).  David
Wesley came back with a 3, which Toine promptly canceled with a bomb
of his own (95-94 37.6 left).  On the next play Wesley drove the lane
and found Matt Geiger for an easy lay-up 96-95 (18 seconds left).  The
Celts tried to come down and hit Walker for a turnaround, but Toine
couldn't get it to go (he was arguably fouled on the play).  Mason hit
another free throw (97-95) and the C's still had a chance to tie the
game with 2.2 seconds to go.  They could not inbound the ball
effectively and Walker ended up taking a 30 foot turnaround jumper
that didn't catch iron.

	The Celts continued their improved FGA% at .423 (that's at
least the 3rd game in a row they've been over 40%) but the Hornets
were better at .465.  And the Hornets went to the basket harder and
got to the line more often 44-20 (34-17 made).  The continuing big
news is the decline of the Celtics press.  They caused 19 turnovers
tonight, while committing 15 themselves.  That together with a small
edge in offensive rebounds got them  5 more shots at the basket, not
enough to make up for the poor shooting and lack of trips to the foul
line.

Lineups: 
Celts: Billups, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Hornets: Wesley, Phils, Rice, Mason, Geiger

Players:
Walker: Toine had a fine game, outside of the third quarter.  he
scored 38 points on 12-25 shooting (and 11-11 from the foul line).  he
also and 11 boards, 6 assists, 3 steals and 4 turnovers.  I thought he
played extremely well in the first half, when he got his points a
variety of different ways, especially abusing Anthony Mason on the
perimeter with mid range jumpers and drives.  He went off the rails
with the outside shot in the 3rd quarter, but got things back in order
to lead the Celts back in the 4th.

McCarty: a quiet game offensively for Walter with just 6 points,  and
5 boards in 30 minutes.  But he deserves great credit (along with
Bowen) for holding Glenn Rice to just 14 points on 5-15 shooting.  I
don't think that Rice had more than a couple open looks at the basket
the entire game.

Mercer: slow, slow start.  But he got things going in the 2nd half
with a couple of open court steal that led to easy jams.  Then his
jumper began falling and he ended the game with 18 points on 7-18
shooting in 43 minutes.

Billups: incredibly bad tonight.  He shot 2-9 and didn't get to the
line once (which is usually his salvation on nights like this).  He
also had a nifty 5 turnovers to go with his 3 assists.   And he had
trouble with Wesley on defense (of course no one else had that much
luck with David either).

Barros: wasn't very impressive on defense either.  But he was a whole
lot better on offense with 10 points, 5 assists, 2 steals and 1
turnover in 19 minutes.  There was a noticeable difference in the
teams overall offensive effectiveness, when Dana was in the game
instead of Chauncey.

DeClercq: Got 24 minutes tonight and came up with 7 points, 8 boards
and 2 steals.  he came up with a couple of nice plays down the
stretch.

Thomas: got the games only other minute at the power forward position
he relieved Walker early in the 2nd quarter for 1minute.  He got back
into the game when DeClercq and Knight got into foul trouble, and
played reasonably well.  he had 2 points, 3 boards and 2 blocks in 14
minutes.  He got a couple of his shots blocked as Mason wouldn't go
for some of his junk..

Bowen: Hit a three tonight, I think his first jumper in at least a
month.  He scored 5 and had 2 boards in 19 minutes.  He played the
point for about 3 minutes (actually Walker played the point on
offense, Bowen guarded Wesley), and the team's offense didn't really
suffer for it.

Knight: perhaps not fully recovered from his concussion?

Brown/Minor: both got a few minutes in the first half, didn't cover
themselves with glory and didn't play in the second.

Edney: DNP

Coaching: maybe the young players on the Celts aren't the only ones
having a difficult time making the transition to the longer pro
season.  In the third quarter tonight, the Hornets scored 12 straight
points and Pitino did not call a timeout.  I think it's the first time
all season that Rick has let the opposition score more than 3
unanswered baskets without stopping the game.

	I think, from the point of view of winning this game, you have
to question the decision to keep Barros out of the game in the 2nd
half until the late stages of the 4th.  Of course Rick isn't coaching
just to win this season and probably feels the need to play Billups
even when things aren't going well to help him develop as a player.

The Celts are now 20-24.  They play Sunday night against the Rockets.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com