Celts Sting Nets: Boston 82- New Jersey 76

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	This win came as a complete surprise to me, especially after
the poor showing the C's put forth in the first half.  The Nets led by
13 at the break, and I thought that the Celts were lucky it wasn't 33.
In the second half, though, it looked as though the Nets were the team
that was just playing out the string, as they couldn't have seemed
less interested in winning the game.  Travis Knight dressed for
tonights game, but didn't play, and Reggie Hanson got his first
minutes as a Celtic.  	

	For a few minutes, at the start of the game, the Nets appeared
to be the offensive juggernaut on the court, that they figure to be on
paper.  They outscored the C's 16-6 over the first 5:00 of the period,
with Sam Cassell playing especially well and Jason Williams dominating
the C's defensive board.  Somehow, mysteriously, the plug got pulled
and the Nets were only able to score one more basket, the rest of the
period, and the C's were able to close the gap to 18-14.  After that
first 5:00 the Nets just couldn't hit anything, even though they were
getting pretty decent shots.

	The Nets continued to be cold from the field at the start of
the second, as the Celts outscored them 11-4, to take a 25-22 lead.
Calipari called a timeout and called for more aggressive defense.  The
Nets responded, particularly Kendall Gill, as they stole the ball and
harassed the Celts into turnovers.  Fueled by easy opportunities, the
Nets offense sprang back to life.  They outscored the Celts 18-1 over
the last half of the period, and allowed the Celts just 6 field goal
attempts.  The score was 42-29 heading into the half.  As I said at
the top ,if the Nets had hit some of the many easy shots they missed,
it could have been much worse.

	The C's opened the 3rd quarter with a rush, scoring on their
first 8 offensive possession, as they narrowed the Net's lead to just
2 at 48-46.  With about 5:00 to go in the period, Antoine Walker put
back his own rejected shot, to give the Celts the lead at 50-48.  The
score was tied at the end of the 3rd 55-55.

	The Celts scored the first 7 points on the way to a 62-55
lead, at the start of the 4th.   Early in the quarter, Chris Gattling
got injured and left the game to go to the locker rom.   A few minutes
later Jason Williams jammed his hand retrieving the ball and had to
leave the game also (both Gattling and Williams returned briefly, but
were ineffective).   The Celts pushed their lead as high as 9 (69-60)
as the Nets just seemed confused on offense.   With 3:30 left in the
game, though, the Nets had pulled to within 4 (69-65).  The Celts
scored 4 straight points to make the lead 73-65 with 2:12.  The Nets
resorted to fouling, and DeClercq developed such a bad case of Shaq's
disease that he had to be removed from the game.  The rest of the
Celts were dependable from the line, and with 20 second left, Dana
picked Cassell's pocket, and went in for an uncontested layup to seal
the victory.  The final was 82-76.

	The Celts shot .405 from the field, which was pretty darn good
contrasted with the .341 figure that the Nets posted (the Celts played
fairly good defense in the second half, but that result was mostly the
result of the Nets incompetence).   That was very necessary, as the
Celts had to overcome a big advantage in offensive boards (17-10) and
excellent free throw shooting (18-22) on the part of the Nets.  The
C's did have an advantage in turnovers caused 25-18.

Lineups:
Celts: Barros, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, DeClercq
Nets: Cassell, Kittles, Gill, Van Horn, Williams

Players:
Mercer: played 46 minutes tonight, and gave the Celts a lot of
stability.  He shot 10-20, scored 23 and had 4 steals.

Walker: Another solid game.  Has Toine suddenly gotten the idea about
field goal percentage?  He shot 9-21 tonight (which is nothing to
write home about), but since Anderson went out of the lineup, he's
avoided any of the real travesty games, he used to have with
regularity before Kenny.  He scored 22, and had 10 rebounds, but also
had 4 turnovers.

Barros: played just well enough for the Celts to win.  He shot 4-12,
scored 14 points, had 7 assists and 3 steals, but also committed 4
turnovers.  Despite a lot of help from his teammates on Cassell, Sam
still put up 29 points on little Dana.  That may have been the best
thing Dana did all night.  By offering such a tempting target for
Cassell to pick on, Sam was completely distracted form his job of
running the team.

McCarty: got 25 minutes, and had another mediocre performance (2 in a
row, I don't get it).  He shot 3-7, had 9 points, 3 boards and 2
assists.  Minor, who played quite well, kept him on the bench for most
of the 4th quarter.

DeClercq: Andrew had a very rough game.  He shot 2-8 form the free
throw line, scored 4 points and had 8 boards in 30 minutes.  His free
throw shooting was so horrible, that the Nets started searching him
out to foul with 3:30 left in the game.  Pitino eventually had to
throw in the towel, and take Andrew out of the game, playing McCarty
at center the rest of the way (It's a good thing that Williams was
hurt).

Minor: Played a very nice floor game.  made a lot of alert plays that
didn't show up in the stats.  He did score 7, have 4 boards and 2
assists in 26 minutes, but he played much better than that.

Edney: Only go 9 minutes and shot 0-4 from the field as the Nets did a
good job of keeping him from journeying all the way to the basket.

Tabak: Shot a couple of air balls on 18 foot jumpers.  He scored 2
points and had 5 boards in 17 minutes.

Hanson: Didn't give any reason that he was with the team, besides his
Pitino history.  He spelled Antoine, so he must be a power forward,
though he didn't do anything to give a hint.  Scoreless, boundless and
assistless in 5 minutes.

Coaching: Although, I thought that the major cause of this win was a
New Jersey intensity level that nearly rivaled the Washington
General's, some credit should go to the Celts defensive scheme.  Most
of the Jersey guys are perimeter players, and the Celts were rushing
and double teaming on the perimeter all night long (especially
Cassell).  It really seemed to throw the Net's shooters out of rhythm.

Opposition Media Frauds of Note: Keith Van Hoax:  Had plenty of
nuthin' tonight.  Shot 3-13 (0-3 on threes), had 5 boards, 1 assist
and 3 turnovers in 41 minutes.  He's got good foot speed for his size,
and isn't nearly as bad a defensive player as I would have thought
(with hard work he could be as good as Toni Kukoc).  Other than that,
though...  His jumper wasn't working, he didn't put the ball on the
floor and didn't drive once all night.  Everytime he got the ball in
the low post he'd just pass it back out.  Very disappointing.
Basically a tall Steve Kerr without the jump shot (or Brad Lohaus with
foot speed).

The Celts are now 31-39.  They play again on Sunday at Philly (6:00
start)

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com