Pacers OutShoot C's: Indiana 120- Boston 104

[wfcooper@tiac.net (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celt's very outmanned team played with a great deal of
enthusiasm, staying in the contest with the Pacers on sheer energy and
adrenalin in the first half.  They just didn't have enough in the tank
to keep it up for the whole game, though, and fell victim to Indiana's
superior skill level in the second.  The Celts did get very big games
from Pierce and Potapenko.

	This game started like an old fashioned shootout.  Chris
Mullin and Paul Pierce took turns not guarding each other, as they
scored about half the points in the game over the first 8 or so
minutes.  The Celts, despite their depleted ranks were pushing the
tempo, and pressing more effectively than they have all season.  The
Pacers where trying to pull away all period, and the Celts were just
managing to stay in contact.  On what looked to be the last possession
of the quarter the Celts had a chance to pull to with 2 or 3, but
instead, Reggie stole the ball, and put in a three as the buzzer
sounded to give the Pacers a 38-30 1st quarter lead.

	The second quarter basically followed the pattern of the
first.  About 3:30 into the period, Pierce hit a 3 to cut the Pacers
lead to 5, but Mullin came right back with a wide open 3 of his own.
Pitino immediately called a timeout to ask the Celts exactly how
Mullin could get that open.  The Celts continued to work extremely
hard, especially Potapenko and Minor.  Potapenko was easily able to
drive past Smits, and drew several fouls on him.  After a Pierce 3,
with about 3:30 to go, the Celts trailed by just 1, but Indiana scored
5 straight.  The Celts came back again and trailed by just 1 at 65-64
with 25 seconds to go.  Miller baited Garnett into fouling him, and
then threw in the jumper to give the Pacers a 68-64 lead.  Pierce had
22 points and 5 assists in the first half.  It was the highest scoring
half in the league this season.

	The third quarter started out with the Pacers going to the
dreaded Mark Jackson post up game.  The Celts got sucked into double
teaming several times, and the Pacers opened the half with a 10-2 run.
The Celts got scored from Pierce, V.P. and Minor to cut the lead to 7,
but the Pacers came back with another run (9-0 this time) to take a
91-73 lead) with three minutes to go in the quarter.  The celts got a
bit of a lift from the bench and managed to cut the lead to 93-82 at
the end of the quarter.  After the very high tempo first half, there
were just 37 possessions in the 3rd quarter.

	More of the same in the 4th, as the Pacers continually beat
the Celts to loose balls, and were able to win offensive rebounds,
even though the tired C's had better position.  The Pacers were able
to push their margin over 20 several times, before the C's scored the
last six of the game to make the score 120-104.  

	Pretty basically the Celts got outshot and outexecuted in this
game.  The C's advantage on the offensive boards was pretty much
balanced by the Pacers stinginess with the turnovers.  The Pacers shot
better from the field (.506-.460) and from the free throw line
(.815-.607)

Lineups:
Celts: Barros, Minor, Pierce, McCarty, Potapenko
Pacers: Jackson, Miller, Mullin, D. Davis, Smits

Players:
Pierce: The mantle has pretty much fallen to Paul, as the only real
grade A NBA talent on the club.  He didn't disappoint with 30 points
(9-21, 5-8 on threes), 7-10 on free throws, 12 boards and 6 assists.
he drove the ball a number of times, embarrassing respected elders
Mullin and Miller on occasion.  And he managed quite a few nice passed
that he didn't get credited for assists on.  Seemed to loose his
concentration on defense at times though.

Potapenko: Especially in the first half he played with tremendous
energy.  Scored 26 (10-21), 16 boards (9 offensive) and 3 assists.  he
played 41 minutes, which was just too many for the energy he was
putting out.  Totally dominated Smits who was just 2-6 on the game.

Minor: Another solid game for Greg with 13 points and 8 boards.
Probably another victim of extended minutes, as he sagged in the 2nd
half.

McCarty: Really got a lot of minutes compared to normal with 35.  Shot
3-9 and actually hit a jumper!

Dana: Is also hurting, but not quite badly enough to sit out a game.  
Shot 5-5, had 10 points and 7 assists in 28 minutes.  Tried hard
against Jackson's post up, but...

Battie: I thought he was a little MIA for this one.  In a game where
you would think he would be a pretty good match up for the various
Pacer Davis's, he only got 20 minutes.   Had 4 points and 5 boards.

Garnett: 9 points and a couple of assists.  Made a couple of nice
baskets, and played hard, though not too well on D.

Jones: Other people see something here that I don't.  His one good
pass of the evening was off of a shot, not your typical point guard
kind of play.  4 points and 2 assists in 20 minutes.

Schintzius: could only get 1 minute in this game.  Pretty much says it
all.

Coaching:  Well, they tried.  It would be nice to see  the Celts who
are going to stay, get some nice confidence building  game.  And it
would be a good opportunity to showcase a guy who you might try to
move (Minor for instance).  Other than that, what can Pitino do?

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net