A Little More Like It: Indiana 101- Boston 93

[wfcooper@tiac.net (Bill Cooper)]

	The Celts played today, with a great deal more intensity,
energy and enthusiasm than has been their recent tendency.
Unfortunately it wasn't enough to beat the Pacers, or in fact, to make
Indiana even sweat real hard.  Rick Pitino employed the press for much
of the game (no matter who was in), and it seemed to spark the team to
a much more aggressive effort on both ends of the court.

	Celts got off to a slow start as usual.  About 2 minutes into
the game Walker went after an offensive rebound hard, nearly injured
his arm and banged up Potapenko in the process.  Vitaly had to go to
the locker room to get 10 stitches.  With V.P. out of the game, the
Pacers went right to Smits, who responded with 10 shots and 10 points
in the first 9 minutes of the game.  The Pacers jumped out to an 8-1
lead.  The Celts hit their first basket (a Kenny Anderson drive)
almost 4:00 minutes into the game.  After the slow start, the Celts
upped the defensive pressure, and were able to tie the game at 18
apiece after Walker hit a three.  The Pacers led at the end of the
fist 22-19.

	The Pacers went to their strong bench, and got some good
results from Jalen Rose and Travis Best at the start of the 2nd.  The
Pacers were able to push the lead back up to 8 at 39-31.  The Celts
got the press going, and turned the Pacers over several times in a
2:00 minute stretch.  They got a nice 6-0 run (which would have been
more if Tony Battie had been able to hit anything) as they close the
gap to 2 (39-35).  Bird put the Indiana front line players back into
the game, and the Pacers finished off the half with an 11-5 run, to
push the lead back up to 10 at 52-42 at the half.  Overall, though,
the Ce;ts played the first half with much more energy and passion than
they have recently.

	Several times during the first half, the Pacers had posted
Mark Jackson against Kenny anderson, and had generally been successful
with the play (I'd guess that they'd gotten 6 points out of it).  To
start the 2nd half, the Celts put Mercer on Jackson and Anderson on
Chris Mullin.  Mullin's eyes just lit up when he saw Kenny guarding
him, and he proceeded to light up Anderson with 16 3rd quarter points.
Mullin's explosion negated what was otherwise a pretty good quarter of
play by the Celts.  The Celts mounted a late run (10-3) to cut the
lead to 5 (79-74) and the end of the period.

	The Celts pulled to within 3 points several times in the 4th
quarter, and then, with about 5:00 to go, cut the lead to just 2
(86-84) on a Ron Mercer turn around (over Reggie Miller).  That was
the last gasp for the Celts though, as the Pacers put up a 10-2 run to
seal the game away.  The final was 101-93.

	Good to see the Celts return to some kind of advantage in the
hustle categories as they had 4 more rebounds than the Pacers, 5 more
offensive rebounds and caused the Pacers to commit 18 turnovers (they
largely negated that with 17 of their own, though).  That all added up
to the Celts attempting 10 more shots than Indiana (the Pacers shot 9
more freethrows).  And the Celts actually shot the ball well at a .483
clip.  As you would expect thought, the Pacers were better, hitting at
a .536 rate.

Players:
Celts: Anderson, Mercer, Pierce, Walker, Potapenko
Pacers: Jackson, Miller, Mullins, D. Davis, Smits

Players:
Walker: Welcome back Toine.  Shot 9-17, had 11 boards (4 offensive), 8
assists, and 2 steals.  Tried 3 three pointers and made 2 of them.  I
really can't say that his shot selection was any better (or worse)
than in his recent poor shooting games: it's just that some of the
shots went in tonight.  Pushed the ball up court successfully, passed,
and kept the various Pacers Davis's from doing any damage on the
boards.  Very nice performance.  The only negative (besides from
bashing Potapenko) was that he didn't get to the free throw line all
game long.

Mercer:  He was active, mixing up the jump shooting game, with some
nice drives to the basket.  Nearly killed himself on one of them as he
went for the reverse lay-up, got tangled up with Antonio Davis and hit
the floor hard.  He had to come out of the game for a few minutes, but
came back, apparently no worse for the wear.  He scored 24 on 11-24
shooting.  During the 3rd quarter, when he was guarding Jackson, the
Pacers really didn't test him with the drive.

Anderson: Continues his recent pattern of hitting his shots but
contributing relatively little to the offense.  he scored 10 points on
5-9 shooting, but had only 5 assists.  Kenny only had one turnover,
but the other Celtic's starters combined for 14: I wonder if it would
be that high if Kenny was really running the offense.  Got
steamrollered by Jackson in the paint a few times, and then really had
his clock cleaned by Mullins in the 3rd.

Pierce: Best game in a while for the rookie.  He shot 5-11, got to the
line 10 times and scored 18 (he was just 1-4 on threes though).  He is
taking Pitino's advice and trying to mix up his offensive game a bit.
he drove the ball from the top of the key, and even once from the
right side in the game.  That's why he got to the foul line so much.

Potopenko: Only played for about 3 minutes in the first half, what
with the gash in his forehead.  Played almost all of the second, and
scored 9 and had 5 rebounds in 23 minutes.  He only guarded Smits at
the start of the 2nd half, and the Pacers had other fish to fry, so
it's hard to gauge how good a job he did.

Battie: Easily the worse game I've seen Tony have since the first 2
weeks of the season.  had a hard time holding on to the ball, and
missed several easy shots.  Ended up with 4 points and 9 boards in 29
minutes, but shot 1-6 on some pretty makeable opportunities.  

Minor: I also thought that Greg's play wasn't quite up to his recent
standard.  Had 2 points and 3 boards in 17 minutes, but he just didn't
have much of a spark.

Dana: Took just 3 shots in 14 minutes, as the Pacers were pretty well
aware of him.  Scored 4, but had just 1 assist.

Bowen: played just 3 minutes.

Coaching:  As always you have to be amazed at Pitino's ability to turn
adversity into something at least semi-postive.  The club played like
an entirely different group that I saw take on the TWolves a few days
ago.  He seems to have rallied the team in a very short period of
time.  Now if he can just get some wins.

I'm not sold on the move he made putting Mercer on Jackson in the 3rd.
Of course the Celts did outscore the Pacers, 32-27, in the period.
But Mullin's scored 16 of the Pacer's points and Miller (who was being
guarded by Pierce) had 8 or so.  How much worse would the standard
defense have been?   

Opposition's Most Annoying Play: Posting Jackson, of course!  Several
times in the first half, when Jackson backed Kenny down, Battie
doubled of off Smits to help out on Jackson.  Tony was completely
predictable in doing it, and left Rik open for an easy 16 foot jumper
each time (a free throw, in essence).  How much worse could it have
been if the Celts just let Jackson take the shot? (of course the one
time they did do just that, Jackson scored).  You know, the reason
that's a good play for the Pacer's isn't really that Jackson is so
good in the low post, it's that Smits can hit a jumper better than
Jackson can!

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net