Celts Shock Heat: Boston 82- Miami 81

[wfcooper@tiac.net (Bill Cooper)]

	Wow! This was a great game.  I was thinking in the last couple
minutes (when the Celts were down 81-77 with 40.4 to go) that even if
the Celts lost, as it seemed they would, it was still a great game.
And then Antoine hit 2 huge shots to give the C's the win!
Magnificent!.  The Celts seemed to be totally controlled by the Heat
for the first 3 quarters.  Then the Celts  with Mercer out for the
game, and Walker on the bench, started the 4th quarter with 4 great
defensive stands.  That set the stage for a quarter, where the Heat
were only able to score 4 baskets.  Then Walker went crazy over the
last 4 minutes of the game, putting in 12 points on 5-6 shots to give
the Celts the win (lot of 4's there).

	The Celts got off to a really, really slow start on both
offense and defense.  They suffered several defensive breakdowns early
in the quarter as the Heat jumped out to a 15-7 lead.  One of the few
early highlights for the Celts was a nice conventional three point
play as Potapenko drove to his left, drew the foul from Zo, and had
the ball drop in.  The Celts fell behind 23-12 as the Heat continued
to get behind them after made baskets, for easy layups.  When the
Celts managed to stop the initial Heat push they actually played
decent defense, but they don't award points for that.  The C's got an
offensive burst from Walker, as he scored 6 points in an 8-0 run, to
bring the Celts back to within 3 at 24-21.  Hardaway threw a dagger at
the C's though, as he knocked in a three on the last possession of the
quarter, with Barros hanging all over him, to make the score 29-21.

	The Heat got off quickly in the 2nd again, scoring the first 5
points, and extending their lead to 13 at 34-21.  A couple of minutes
later Damon Jones demonstrated, for the first time, that his billing
as a point guard, might not be wholly undeserved, as he hit Tony
Battie on the wing of the break, with a 40 foot pass from half court.
In general, though, the Celts were pretty well mired down offensively,
as they could only score 12 points in the period.  Amazingly, they
only trailed by 13 at the end of a miserable half, (Pierce was 0-4 or
5 on three, most of them decent shots) 46-33.

	The 3rd quarter started with the Celts making a much better
effort to get back on defense, and choking off some of the easy
baskets that the Celts were getting.  Pierce hit a nice turn around
over Mashburn about 4:00 into the period, to start off a 6-0 Boston
run to get the C's to within 7 (52-45).  Greg Minor hit a couple of
nice shots to keep the Celts within hailing distance.  With about 2
minutes to go in the period, Mercer went up to hit a jump shot, but
came down wrong, and hurt his back.  Mercer had to go to the locker
room and was unable to continue.  Still the Celts ended the quarter
trailing by 11 (64-53).

	The Celts came out with tremendous defensive intensity.  They
started out the quarter causing a Miami 24 second violation.  On the
next Heat possession, Mashburn took a feeble jump shot under shot
clock pressure, then they turned the ball over, and then the Heat had
to take another hurried 3.  Unfortunately, in all that time, the Celts
were unable to score themselves.  Vitaly got the team going, first
scoring on a nice pass from Pierce, then driving past Zo, and picking
up the foul.  On the next play, he hit Minor on a back door cut for an
easy layup, and then, a moment later, picked up a loose ball and
alertly hit Pierce for a layup.  On the next possession, Potapenko put
back a Barros miss.  He scored 7 points and had 2 fine assists in 6
possessions.  That got the Celts to within 5.  Porter and Hardaway
came back, though, and tried to drive 2 nails into the Celts coffin,
with a jumper and a drive to the basket (Heat 75-64: 5:00).  Pierce
got a put back, and the he scored an unusual three point play, as he
hit one free throw, missed the second, but got the rebound and put it
back (75-69).  On the next play, Walker got switched onto Hardaway,
and he challenged Timmy to drive on him (you could see on the replay,
that Toine was jabbering away at him a mile a minute).  Hardaway had
his teammates clear out, and tried to drive, but Walker got down low,
and swiped the ball away from Hardaway.  Tim went and got it, but had
to take a long 3, which missed badly.  Walker went right back down to
the other end and hit a huge three to pull the Celts to within 3
(75-72).  On the next play, Potapenko held off Zo with some very nice
D.  Walker maneuvered into free space and hit a solid J to make the
score 75-74 (2:57).  Then Zo hit a couple of free throws to make the
margin 3 again.  Dana came back with one free throw, and then Walker
made a brilliant spinning hook to tie the game (first time since the
begriming of the game) at 77 (2:00).  After a couple of non-productive
possessions, Hardaway got a measure of revenge as he drove on Walker
to put the Heat up by 2.  Potapenko turned the ball over on a travel,
and then Pierce held Brown going to the basket.  Brown converted both
free throws to make the score 81-77 with just 40.4 to go.  Walker came
back with another driving hook shot to make the score 81-79 (.29).
Once again, the Celts came up with a great defensive stand, as they
forced the Heat into a 24 second violation.  The Celts had the ball,
but had just 4.2 second to tie or win the game.  Walker got the ball
nearly at mid court (He missed steping into back court by a
leprechaun's hair), and then drove towards the 3 point line.  He
pulled up at the line, and shot off his left foot.  The ball banked
right in to the hoop.  The Celts had their first lead of the game:
82-81 with just .7 seconds left.  Hardaway got off a pretty decent
shot, but it went awry, and the Celts had their most spirited win of
the season.  The Celts outscored the Heat 18-6 over the last 5:00 of
the game, and held Miami to just 4 baskets in the 4th quarter.

	The Celts big edge in this game was in the turnover
differential (17-6).  That gave them an edge of 10 more field goals
taken (85-75).  They managed to make one more basket (which I imagine
explains the tight score).  It's a credit to the strong defense the
Celts played in the last quarter that the Heat only shot .427 (they
were over 50% for much of the game).  The Celts, especially Pierce,
were gruesome from three point range (3-18, 1-16 before Toine's late
outburst).

Players:
Celts: Barros, Mercer, Pierce, Walker, Potapenko
Heat: Hardaway, Marjele, Mashburn, Brown, Mourning 

Players:
Walker: Obviously a measure of vindication for Walker (though I'd be a
lot more impressed if he stopped Karl Malone instead of Tim Hardaway).
The best thing about his last minute heroics, is that 4 of his baskets
came facing the basket after he had put the ball on the floor.  Up
until then, he was having another forgettable game.  He ended up with
29 points, 8 boards and 2 steals, and shot 11-25 (which means that he
shot 7-20 over the first 44 minutes of the game).  After he hit the
three that gave the Celts the lead, he jumped up on the table at the
end of the court, and waved his arms wildly at the crowd.  Actually, I
like that, it's the contrived displays that set my teeth on edge.

Potapenko:  If Vitaly doesn't get the team going earlier in the 4th,
there would have been no late heroics by Antoine.  He arguably
outplayed Mourning: Certainly Zo didn't feel he could take advantage
of V.P. at all.  Veep had 14 points, 7 boards and 4 assists (all gems)
in 31 minutes.  He continues to perform very well in the 4th quarter.

Minor: Got to play down the stretch (first time this year, when it
wasn't garbage time) due to Mercer's injury.  He played fine defense
and drew a critical offensive foul late in the game.  He also scored
12 on 4-5 shooting in 26 minutes.  Very solid.

Pierce: Awful on threes.  0-7, and I would say that 6 of them were
pretty good shots.  And he was missing by quite a bit.  Still managed
to score 13 and pick up 8 boards in 36.

Dana: just doesn't perform well when the ball doesn't move up and down
the court.  He scored 5 on 2-10 shooting and had 5 assists in 32
minutes.

Mercer: Really seemed to be in agony with back spasms.  Really was
having a pretty poor game up till then.  He shot 3-9 and had 6 points
in 32 minutes (0 boards, 0 assists).

Battie: got limited minutes, as this was Vitaly's kind of game.  He
did manage 3 points and 3 boards in 17 minutes, but of course was
vulnerable to Zo on the low block.

Jones: As I said above he did make one real nice pass in the game.
Still shot 0-4 and had only 1 assist in 16 minutes.  He does play hard
on defense and has decent size.  He was one of the few Celtics digging
to get back on defense in the first half (all the team did, after
getting an earful at halftime).

McCarty: The only good thing about Walter is that Pitino will press
when he's on the court.

Coaching:  As much as I loved Walker's late game heroics, the most
encouraging thing about this game was the defense the Celts played
down the stretch.  They looked like the veteran team ratcheting up the
defensive pressure on the Heat.  That's the kind of D that wins close
games.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net