Celts Whup Up On Wizards: Boston 113- Washington 84

[wfcooper@tiac.net (Bill Cooper)]

	We learned this afternoon that Abe Pollin did not, as he
averred at the time, rename the Washington NBA franchise because he
was rejecting the revolutionary traditions of the USA (that is what he
was saying, wasn't it?).  It's either because a) the Wizards won't
ever fight for anything, especially a basketball game, or b) because
it going to take magic for this team to ever win anything again.  In
either case the Celts faced absolutely no resistance from the Whiz,
who apparently feel that since the season should have ended a week
ago, they can hardly be expected to put forth any effort.

	In fact, though early on, things did not look so good for our
heroes.  They were down 8-4, 4:00 into the game.  Even so they were
playing with energy, and they were getting good shots.  Effort began
to tell, especially after Jones and Minor came into the game.  The
Celts ran off 8 straight to take a 19-15 lead.  Although the C's only
led 24-21 at the end of the first quarter, the tempo was going in
their favor.

	Potapenko picked up his 2nd foul early in the 2nd period, and
Pitino put in Battie (who had picked up 2 fouls in the first).  Tony
immediately got faked into the air by Coker (Joe, Steve... ?), and he
picked up his third  (very dumb play).  Pitino was forced to go to
Riley, and has usually been the case, Eric responded with solid play.
In the mead time, Jones and McCarty were shooting lights out.  The
Celts got the quarter started off with a 12-5 run to push the lead up
to 12.  With 1:26 to go, Mccarty hit his 3rd jumper of the period, to
start off an 8-2 run, to help the C's finish off the half leading
52-38.

	The game so far had been similar to the task of opening a very
stuck door.  At first it was tough going, and then, in the 2nd quarter
it began to give way.  At the start of the 2nd half, the C's put their
collective shoulder to it with gusto, and it gave way completely.  The
Celts scored on the first 6 possessions of the 3rd, on their way to a
65-44 lead.  The game was effectively over at this point (if it wasn't
when the Whiz landed at Logan).  Potapenko and Battie got the Celts
off to the nice start, with some very effective 2 man basketball (they
scored the first 6 of the half).  With about 5:00 to Mercer drove past
Richmond along the baseline and went in for a monster jam (nearly top
ten plays of the week quality).  The Celts hit on 10 of their first 16
shots in the period.  The Wizards did stage a bit of a comeback
towards the end of the quarter, closing to with in 17, at 84-67.

	The Celts opened the period fast again as they outscored the
Whiz 10-4 on the way to a 24 point lead.  The run featured 2
conventional three point plays.  That was really the end of the end.
A few minutes later Schintzius even got into the game.  Jones put on a
bit of a show over the last 4:00 minutes, helping the C's to get the
lead as high as 31.  The final was 113-84.

	I'm not sure that this has happened since Pitino came to
Boston.  The Celts just crushed Washington on field goal percentage
.536-.395.  What else do you need to win a game?  The Celts also shot
the 3 well (9-18) and caused 22 Whiz turnovers.  They had 20
themselves, however, and got modestly outrebounded.

Lineups:
Celts: Barros, Mercer, Pierce, Battie, Potapenko
Wiz: Strickland, Richmond, Cheaney, Thorpe, Wallace

Players: 
Barros: Dana has played 2 or 3 of his finest Celtics games in the last
2 or 3 weeks and this was another of them.  He scored 20 (7-8), had 6
boards and 8 assists (and he should have had several more) in just 26
minutes.  And he played reasonable defense, even though the Wiz tried
to post him a few times early.  He constantly pushed the tempo.  It
just doesn't get much better than that.

Pierce: quiet game, which I thought was good in a way.  He didn't try
to force anything, and he was looking to help out with the floor game,
and pass the ball.  He found Jones for several successful threes.  Had
11 points on 5-12 shooting, also had 7 boards and 3 assists.

Potapenko: 16 points, 5 boards and 3 assists in 25 minutes.  Obviously
there's nothing wrong with that.  But I would have liked to see him
really bully the smaller Washington centers (well, White is actually a
little bigger, than Vitaly, but still...).  If Karl Malone got matched
up against that kind of junk he would go for 40.  I'm not saying that
V.P. is a good a Malone, but against this quality of player he should
look like it.

Mercer: I thought that Ron was pressing a little early, but he settled
down and had a nice little shooting game for himself.  He scored 18 on
9-18 shooting.  His jumper was solid over the last 3 quarters, and he
drove to the basket strong several times.

Battie: I was happy to see Battie get the start.  He kind of ruined it
with some unfortunate fouls, but other than the paratrooper act was
pretty effective.  8 points, 8 boards and 2 blocks.  I've always
thought that you should evaluate shotblockers by comparing the number
of shots they block to the number of fouls they get (blocks/ (fouls -
(minutes *.05)) is a pretty good formula.  Lots of guys can block
shots, if they don't care how many fouls they get.  That's why you see
so many guys who have high shot blocked per minute stats but never
play.

Jones: his best effort so far.  6-10 shooting, 15 points and 6 assists
in 22 minutes.  He took 5 shots in his first 6 minutes of the game.
After that he played a very respectable, point guard style game.  He
was very clearly looking to set up other players, especially on the
break.  And he played aggressive defense.  If he continues to play
this way, he should definitely have a spot in the league next year (if
not with the C's).

McCarty: Best game of the year, especially shooting the J.  He was
6-12 for 17 points, had 6 boards, 2 steals and 2 blocks in 34.  He hit
a number of jumpers, and 0 airballs.

Minor: came in, during the first quarter, and gave the C's a lift with
some clever passes.  I guess that Pitino wanted to get Mercer back in
the flow, though, as Minor got just 11 minutes.

Garnett: got 12 minutes also, mostly junk.  Hit one shot, but played
aggressive D.

Riley: came in during the second quarter, when both V.P. and T.B. were
in foul trouble.  He didn't score but had 4 boards in 11 minutes.

Schintzius: played for some unknown reason.

Coaching: Does Rick play favorites?  Minor has been playing his tail
off for the last month (at least).  The minute Mercer gets back, even
in a blow out, and Minor goes back down to 11 minutes.  Riley comes in
and does a yeoman like job in the second period, and then doesn't even
get back into the game in the second half.  What's up?

	I propose, seriously, that we not get too excited about the
C's strong play at the end of the season.  We all know that Rick is a
great motivator, that's a given.  So  the outmanned C's are going to
get some wins that we might not expect based on their general level of
play.  Same thing happened last year.  Given Pitino's strength as a
motivator it doesn't mean a thing.

	On the other hand, during the recent March depression among
the Celt's fans I heard several times, that veterans would never want
to play for Pitino because of his style.  And I think that that's
probably true in many cases. I'd like to point out, though, that this
is a good thing!  If it keeps 75% effort players like Rod Strickland
off the team, I'm all for it (you may think that Strickland is a
wonderfully talented player - so do I, but you have to admit that he
plays just as hard as he has to to get his stats).

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net

P.S. The Mitch Richmond and Glenn Rice situations remind me of a
phenomenon that I have observed several times over the years.  If a
veteran, main scorer moves from his long-tioe team to a new one, he
nearly always declines in point procuction.  Other examples of this
that come to mind are Paul Westphal, George Gervin and Rolando
Blackman.  The veteran scorers new team will never run the pet plays
in the right way or in the quantity that he was used to with his old
team.