Celts Great Escape: Boston 103 - Charlotte 100

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	By the standards of Hoop moral purity, it would have been
entirely appropriate for the Celts to lose this one. Things were
coming to easy early in the third quarter as the Celts lead ballooned
to 20 points.  The C's went into premature celebration mode, began to
throw up silly shots, and the Hornets took advantage to get back into
the game.  The Hornets made a big late push, outscoring the Celts 17-5
to tie the game at 99 apiece.  It took a huge strip of the ball by
Adrian Griffin (who else?) against Eddie Jones to put the game away
for the Celts.

	As the first started off it was apparent that the Celts had
not lost the beat from  the first 2 games.  The C's led 1-4, 3:00 into
the game, with each of the starters scoring 2 apiece.  And Eddie jones
was on the bench with 2 fouls.  Silas came in with his back up Eddie
(Robinson: one of those subconscious small college scoring machines).
Robinson started dropping hoops on the Celts from all over the court,
hitting his first 4 shots, and pulling the Hornets back into the game
(21-19).  The Celts saw their first nice stretch of basketball out of
Tony Battie this season, as he came in and led the reserve press team
on an 8-0 run to put the C's up 31-22.  Battie had 2 spectacular
offensive putbacks.  The Hornets stabilized at the end of the quarter
and pulled to within 6, at 37-31.  The pace was decidedly in the favor
of the C's with 54 possessions in the quarter.

	Battie continued his high energy at the beginning of the
second, demonstrating a nice touch on his turnaround.  Griffin found
Dana on the wing for his first three of the year, as the Celts went up
46-37.  The air went out of the Celts offense a bit, though and the
Hornets took advantage to pull to within 3 points at 48-45.  Griffin
took over the last 4:00 of the half with an omniscient display of
thinking basketball.  He must have had 6 assist quality passes (the
C's muffed a couple of them) and managed to provoke 2 or 3 turnovers,
as the Celts outscored the Hornets 10-2 o take a 58-47 lead into the
half.  Battie led the C's with 14 first half points.

	Maybe the cagy older Hornets were lying low on purpose.  The
Celts broke out at the start of the third with an 11-2 run to push the
lead up to 20 at 69-49.  The Celts abandoned what got them to that
point, and started to take wild shots, and trying to make spectacular
plays.  The Hornets tightened the defense and began to chip away at
the lead.  As the Celts lead began to melt away, they began to rush
shots.  At the end of the quarter the  lead was down to ten, and the
Celtics chance to get an easy win was gone.

	Brad Miller, who inexplicably was passed over in the first
half in favor of the immortal Todd Fuller, was active at the start of
the 4th, as the Hornets cut the C's lead to 6 at 84-78.  Walker came
up with a couple of scores and the Celts seemed to be back in control
of the game with about 5:00 to go in the game (94-82).  On the next
play, the Battie fouled Mason after he scored a basket.  Mason missed
the free throw, but Wesley tapped the ball to Phils who hit a three,
to give the Hornets a five point possession.  The Celts couldn't get a
stop, as the Hornets were able to score on 8 straight possessions to
tie the game at 99-99 with 1:30 left.  Finally the Celts got a couple
of stops (V.P. had a nice block on Wesley) and then Phils fouled
Anderson on a drive to the basket.  Kenny hit both to put the Celts up
by 2 at 101-99 (55 seconds to go).  On the next play V.P. fouls Mason,
but Mason missed 1 of his 2 throws.  Walker missed a three (a bit of a
poor shot).  The Hornets called a timeout and decided to isolate Jones
against Griffin. Jones posted Griffin and was going to spin to the
basket on him.  Before Eddie could really start the move, Adrian
reached around his backside and tapped the ball away.  Kenny got
control of the ball, and Wesley was forced to foul him.  Anderson made
both free throws and the Celts were up 103-100 with 6.9 left.  Eldon
Campbell, seemed to lose track of how much time was left, and rushed a
three, which clanged.  Fittingly Griffin got the rebound, and threw
the ball up in the air as he fell out of bounds to make sure that the
Hornets wouldn't be able to get another shot.

	The Celts won this game on the offensive boards, oddly enough.
They had 18 offensive boards to 11 for the Hornets, and they did a
pretty good job off putting them back in. It was a good thing, as the
Celts shot selection largely abandoned them in the second half.  After
shooting over 50 percent in the first half, the Celts fell to .448 by
the end of the game, against the Hornets .480.  Turnovers were pretty
even.



Players:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Griffin, Walker, Potapenko
Hornets: Wesley, Jones, Phils, Mason, Campbell

Players:
Griffin: had 8 points, 10 boards, 6 assists, 5 steals and 1 turnover
in 40 minutes of playing time.  Had 2 huge steals down the stretch,
after a 4th quarter in which he largely did not tough the ball.  In
fact the Celtics decline in field goal percentage between the halves
was directly proportional to the number of touches that Griffin did
and didn't get in the respective halves.  I thought that the Hornets
were adjusting to Adrian's game in the second, sagging way off him,
when ever he got the ball, to prevent his drive.

Anderson:  Not really a great game, despite having 24 points (11 from
the free throw line).  Basically, when the Celts offense broke down,
he was able to generate a bit of offense by driving the ball to the
basket and getting to the foul line.  Of course, you might argue that
it was his fault the offense broke down in the first place.  had just
3 assists in 33 minutes of playing time.

Battie: finally played like the guy that we saw at the end of last
season.  scored 18 points, and had 9 boards and 2 blocks in 29
minutes.  He was also one of the culprits, in the general collapse in
the 3rd quarter, as he got himself into a couple of situations on the
offensive end that he couldn't extricate himself from.  Got himself
going with a couple of nice offensive rebounds, and then hit some
impressive turn turn over Coleman.

Walker: Really lost his head in the second half.  Played in the first,
much as he had in the first couple games of the season, but when the
Celts got that big lead, he seemed to forget all about it.  He ended
up with 15 points on 7-17 shooting, with 5 boards, 1 assist and 6
turnovers.  Let's just call it a relapse, and forget about it.

Pierce: Second poor shooting game in a row.  I thought that tonight he
took some questionable shots, as though he really didn't want to have
a second game in a row when he barely made double figures.  He did
pitch in, though, and come up with 9 boards and 4 steals, though,
which is always a nice things to see.

Potapenko:  Career high in assists with 7.  Leaving aside the flooky
stuff, he also had 6 points, 7 boards and 2 blocks in 28 minutes.  He
drew just 4 fouls,a and continues to play aggressively without getting
in foul trouble.  At this point I would say his play is much improved
over last year.

Cheaney: had 8 points and began to show some signs of coming out of
his funk.  Shot 4-6, and had 3 boards in 16 minutes.

Williams:  Continues to keep up the point a minutes pace with 6 in 6
minutes.  But how do you get Griffin off the floor?

McCarty: See above.  Actually the box score I'm looking at doesn't
show him as playing at all, though I'm pretty certain he was in there
for a few moments?   For that matter it shows Fortson playing for 10
minutes???  Maybe Danny has lost some weight.

Dana: hit the one three and that was about it.  When the crunch came
in the second half, Pitino went strictly with Anderson.

Turner: I was surprised to see Pitino put him in at all.  But  he got
in for a few moments in the first, before Dana came in.

Pervis: Didn't play.

Coaching: This game was a present from Griffin to Pitino, and after
the game Rick was properly appreciative. Pitino said that he warned
his guys that Charlotte wasn't about to go away, but just couldn't get
the message across.  Of course the Hornets had a lot to do with that.

The Celts are now 3-0.  They help to open the Birdhouse in Indy
tomorrow night. 

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net