Jazz OutLast Celts: Utah 110-94

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts got off to a fast start, but slowly and surely the
Jazz cut off the run game, eliminated most of their turnovers and
choked off the C's halfcourt offense (except for Toine).    The Celts
had a couple of chance to tie the game in the 3rd quarter and where
within 6 in the middle of the 4th, but by the end of the game the Jazz
where leading by a considerable margin.  Pitino took an early exit,
drawing 2 technicals late in the 4th quarter.

	Early in the game the Celts were getting their pace and
generating some good shots off of it.  They jumped out to leads of
14-8 and 16-10.  The Jazz got a little more careful with the ball, and
began to fall back quicker to cut off the break.  The Celts still
tried to push the tempo, but they would rush down court to find the
Jazz defense set up and waiting.  The Jazz outscored the C's 14-7 over
the last half of the 1at to take a 24-23 lead.

	Chris Morris came into the game at the start of the 2nd and
tried to guard Toine.  Walker started in on Morris and after he made a
brilliant move to score and draw the foul, he got called for a
technical for taunting.  The C's tied up the game at 31-31, but the
Jazz struck back with a 9-2 run to take a 7 point lead at 40-33.  The
Jazz did all of this, going to Malone in the post very sparingly.  The
Celts starters where able to close the gap to 3 at the end of the
quarter 49-46.

	The Jazz stretched out their lead again at the start of the
3rd.  They got the lead as high as 8 at 69-61.  The Celts got a run
going and outscored the Jazz 10-4 to pull to within a basket at 73-71.
Walker and Mercer both had good chances to tie the game, but neither
could get their shot to go down.  In a surprise move, Pitino went to
Tyus Edney in relief of Anderson instead of Barros.  The result was
hardly pleasing though, as the Jazz came back with a 9-1 run to take
an 82-72 lead at the end of the 3rd quarter.

	The Celts continued to play hard and pulled to within 6 at
90-84.    The Jazz took final command of the game with a 10-1 run to
go up 100-85 (It was during this  run that Pitino got ejected).  The
remainder of the game was mostly junk and the final score was 110-94.

	The Celts got outshot in the game .455 to .500.  They also got
outrebounded 41-33 (16-13 offensive).  The Celts small edge in
turnovers 23-19 was nowhere near enough to overcome that.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Mercer, Minor, Walker, DeClercq
Jazz: Stockton, Hornacek, Keefe, Malone, Foster

Players:
Walker: Toine had one of hits best games of the year.  He shot 14-25
(0-4 on 3's)10 boards, 3 steals and just 1 turnovers in 41 minutes (36
points).  Although technically he and Malone were matched up, they
very rarely guarded each other, as Walker drew Greg Foster for much of
the game (who had no idea what to do with Toine).  Walker really
didn't shoot that well in the game, but he drove to the basket and
continually got easy shots, as well as getting to the free throw line
12 times.

Anderson.  I think that you would have to  call this a poor game on
Kenny's part.  He scored 10 (most in the first quarter), shot 4-10,
had 4 assists and 5 turnovers.  More importantly he was unable to do
anything about pushing the tempo.  While he did a pretty good job on
Stockton, Utah won the battle of the tempo, by and large.

Mercer: Off night shooting the ball at 6-15.  Missed an unusual number
of easy (for him) jumpers.  

Minor: A quiet game for Minor.  He only got 4 shots off and had 7
points and 3 boards in 24 minutes.  

DeClercq: Actually not bad defense on Malone.  But he picked up 6
fouls in 21 minutes, had 3 points and 3 boards.  

Barros: Only got 14 minutes, as Edney got some of his normal time in
the 2nd half.  He scored 9 and had 2 assists in 14 minutes.  I really
didn't see anything in his play in the first that would have caused
Pitino to go to Edney in the second.  Maybe Rick though that Edney
might be able to push the tempo.

McCarty: another woeful performance.  Shot 0-5 and had 2 boards and 2
assists in 16 minutes.

Knight: Really didn't play that badly by his standards, but the idea
of Travis guarding Malone is just implausible, and Karl acted as
thought he was offended at the very idea.  Travis scored 2 points, had
3 assists and 2 blocks in 12 minutes.

Bowen: shot the ball a lot from the outside, as the Jazz fell way off
him..  He shot 2-9, and had 9 points, 6 boards, 2 assists and 3 steals
in 31 minutes.

Ellison: I thought he did a pretty good job against Malone defensively
and I was very surprised when Pitino replaced DeClercq with Knight
after Andrew fouled out.  

Edney: Tyus scored 2 points and had 3 turnovers in 4 minutes.  I think
that Pitino sent him in there with order to push the tempo no matter
what (a sort of "Charge of the Light Brigade") and Tyus did what he
was ordered to do, even thought the Jazz were easily getting back in
time to stop any idea the Celts had of running.  The result was that
Tyus was trying to penetrate, guarded by 2 or 3 players, and lost the
ball.

Coaching: It's pretty obvious that the Celts don't have the answers
yet to team the quality of the Jazz.  As long as the veteran team
keeps it's head,and prevents the Celts from cashing in turnovers for
easy baskets, there's not much the Celts can do.

The Celts are now 28-31.  They play again on Friday versus the Whiz.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com