Sweeping the Heat

[D Parker <danp@town.ipswich.ma.us>]

Oh, man what a game!  I wish that all of the list members could have been
watching this one together.  We would have been rocking.

The Heat is one of my favorite teams to beat (Washington was the top
before they traded Chris Webber) and to stick it to them *again* in their
building was sweet.  Especally after Riley's and Hardaway's whining about
Pitino's late-game timeout the first time they played in Miami.

Pat Riley looked completely shell-shocked.  He must have wanted to trade
the whole team after the game.  The Celtics put on a shooting clinic in
the third quarter, but Miami's soft defense certainly helped.  You would
have thought Miami would have had *no* problem getting up for this one.
Who would have expected a 21 point Celtic lead in the third quarter?

Pierce keeps showing he will produce when he gets the opportunity.  The
team went to him a lot and he just kept scoring.  He makes Mercer's
weaknesses even more glaring.  Ron just can't take the ball to the hoop
regularly, while Pierce can seemingly penetrate at will.  I would
recommend to Mercer that he focus on ball-handling over the summer,
because if he had a good handle on the ball with his quickness he could
just toast people.  He jumper just hasn't been reliable enough to count
on.

You have to wonder if there are enough shots to go around when Walker,
Pierce and Mercer are in the lineup.  Pierce is just so productive, but
for whatever reason all the plays seem to be run for Mercer, and he
doesn't seem to have the same discriminating shot selection he did last
year.  If no major trades are made, I'd love to see Mercer coming off the
bench to give the second unit some more scoring punch and so he could be
the focus of the offense when he's in there.

As for Antoine, I don't mean to suggest the C's are better without him,
but I think he needs to adapt his game a little and the C's shouldn't rely
on him in the post so much.  The Celtics have the youth to be a running
team and there should be much more motion in the half-court offense.
Throwing the ball in to Toine fifteen times a game turns the other players
into spectators and Toine hasn't exactly been the second coming of Kevin
McHale.  He can be effective down low, but I wouldn't expect him to
produce the automatic 20-30 points the way a McHale could (or Karl Malone
can today).  If the C's could get a point guard that could produce like
the Kenny of last year on a regular basis this problem might be solved.
Kenny made Toine look a lot better last year when he was leading him to
the basket for easy hoops.

Damon Jones had a good game.  Dunno what his stats were but he was
confident with the ball, didn't have any of those sloppy turnovers that
become momentum-changers, knocked down a three in the C's third quarter
stomping, and was very upbeat and enthusiastic during stops of play.

I thought the C's had a nice little strategy in having Walter bring the
ball up the floor to take pressure off the point guards.  The ball would
be inbounded to Dana or Damon, they would take a few dribbles, and instead
of trying to break through the pressure they would toss it over to McCarty
who would bring it over the 10 second line.  It worked really well,
probably because McCarty's man would be nowhere near him so Walter could
bring it up pretty much uncontested.

Dana had a spectacular game.  He's not a starting point guard, but with
games like this you just know he deserves to fit in somewhere.

What a great win for the C's, especally since their victories over the
Bulls and Wizards were being pooh-poohed by so many people.

Dan