Cavs Bury C's: Cleveland 115- Boston 88

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	Awful night for the Celts.  Without Pierce, they needed solid
nights from Walker and Anderson, and they just didn't get it.  Griffin
tried to step up, but couldn't come close on his own to making up the
huge deficit.  Just like the first game at the Fleet Center, the Celts
nearly got run out of the building in the first quarter.  They managed
to climb back into the game at halftime.  Unlike the first game, when
the Celts managed to cut off the Cav's break and forced them to play
halfcourt, the Cavs responded with some decent half court offense.

	The Celts actually started out the game playing as though they
thought the NBA had a soccer style offside rule!  The Cavs scored
easily on long passes thrown over the Celts non-defense.  14 of the
Cavs first 16 points came on easy layups. and the Celts were quickly
down 21-8.  This all came about despite Kemp having to go out of the
game early in the first quarter with 2 fouls.  The Celts, in his
absence chose to settle for long jumpers (on the occasions when they
didn't turn the ball over outright).  Three pointers from McCarty and
Williams helped the Celts trail by "just" 13, 30-17 at the end of the
period.  Despite 9 first quarter turnovers.

	Things started off even worse at the start of the second.
Kemp came back into the game and put up some quick points as the Cavs
pushed the lead up to 20 at 39-19.  Battie continued to work hard, and
Barros and Cheaney (of all people) began to hit some shots.  The Celts
slowly began to creep back into the game.  Cheaney and Griffin
connected on back to back threes as the Celts got the lead down to 10
at 47-37.  They go to with 8 when Griffin stole the ball on the
perimeter and went in for the easy jam, but the Cavs ended the half
leading 51-41.  All in all, a far better result than the Celts
deserved.

	For a few minutes at the start of the 3rd, it appeared that
the Celts might make a game of it.  They hung around, threatening to
cut the lead below ten, for the first 4:00, as Kemp had to return to
the bench again with foul trouble.  Halfway through the period,
Cheaney hit a jumper to cut the lead to 9 at 62-53.  The Cavs came
back with a 10-0 run to pretty much put the game out of reach.  The
Celts make a bit of a bid to get back in the game with an 11-6 run of
their own, but the Cav's led at the end of the third 81-65.  

	About 2:00 into the 4th Pitino took Griffin, who had been
supplying most of the Celts offense, out in favor of Jamel Thomas.
The Celts immediately went 5 possessions in a row without scoring, as
the Cavs pushed the lead up to 21 at 92-71.  The rest of the game was
garbage time, with the Cavs bench players collecting most of the
trash.  They got the lead up as high as 30 at 111-81, before they
settled for a final of 115-88.

	The Celts actually got the difference in field goal percentage
down to about 48-42 at the end of the third.  By the end of the game,
thanks to the Cavs bench's performance in the 4th quarter the
difference was back up to .531-.413.  The Celts got clobbered on the
boards 43-32.  Especially disappointing was the Celt's total of 9
offensive boards (given that they missed 47 shots).  After the awful
first quarter, the Celts held the turnover total down to just 16.
They were 5-19 on threes.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Griffin, Williams, Walker, Person
Cavs: Knight, Sura, Murray, Kemp, DeClercq

Players:
Griffin: Adrian did about everything he could.  He did a really nice
job of penetrating and dishing off for open jumpers.  Unfortunately,
not too many of the teammates he passed to seemed to hit the shots he
set up for them.  He somehow ended up with just 3 assists, though I'm
certain he made at least 10 passes, that could have been assists, if
the good open shot had gone in.  In addition, he scored 16 and had 6
boards in 31 minutes.  Once again, he did forget to stay in contact
with Sura a couple of times on the perimeter.  He doesn't have the
guard defensive instincts yet.

Battie: very aggressive, though a bit less effective than you might
wish.  Only shot 6-14, and had 16 points, 7 boards and 5 assists (made
a couple of solid passes).

Walker: 0-5 on threes, 4-15 overall.  Didn't seem to have much
direction tonight.  No real plan on what he would try to do (maybe
Kemp going out so early messed him up).  5 boards, 0 assists and 5
turnovers.  Had 2 or 3 outright airballs.

Anderson: Really looked for his jumper early, but he wasn't hitting
(missed the first 5 shots).  Got into some foul trouble and ended up
with 6 points (2-10) and 2 assists in 23 minutes (he did have 3
steals).  Probably only penetrated 2 or 3 times the whole game.

Cheaney: went 5-7 from the floor, including a 3, and at least one
jumper off a screen.  His confidence in his jump shot in definitely on
the increase (just a few weeks ago he wouldn't even take one).
Although Williams isn't playing badly, I wouldn't be surprised to see
Cheany get a start or two before Pierce gets back.

Williams: Made several nice passes tonight, but seems increasingly
unwilling to go into the post.  He hit a 3 tonight, but still ended up
shooting 3-7 (7 trips to the free throw line) for 11 points and 4
assists in 30 minutes.

Barros: also more aggressive taking his jump shot.  Unfortunately the
results aren't matching Cheaney's (2-6 tonight).  he scored 6 points
and had 4 assists in 24 minutes.  

McCarty: hit a 3 the first thing into the game, and, as usually
happens, he ended up shooting 1-6.  Had 2 points in 13 minutes.

Thomas: hit a couple of nice jumpers off screens.  The rest of the
time he looked like a Todd Day clone (hey, isn't that Todd who keeps
popping up in the Suns box scores?).  4 points and 2 assists (I missed
that) on 4 shots in 8 minutes.

Overton: 2 missed shots and 2 boards in 5 minutes at the end of the
game.

Coaching: I don't know what Rick should have done tonight.  Obviously
he needed Kenny and Toine to step up (intelligently) and they didn't.
It would have been nice to see the team look as though they had
learned something from the last time they played the Cavs, and not let
them get all those easy baskets in the first quarter.

The Celts are back to .500 at 10-10.  And they've got no easy mark
tomorrow as the Jazz come into  town.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net