Celts Overtake Cavs: Boston 114- Cleveland 103

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	A really nice win for the C's, their best of the year in quite
a few ways.  A large portion of the credit has to go to Paul Pierce,
who played rather poorly in the first half, I thought due to his
recent illness.  But he came out in the second half, and got himself
back into the game, through pure hustle.  Pierce carried the Celts
back into the game, and Griffin and Potapenko were there to get the
Celts home in the 4th.  Pitino reversed direction 180 degrees on his
use of the bench, basically sprinkling in the second team with the
first throughout the game.

	The game opened with it looking as though Randy Whitman had
stolen his playbook from Paul Westhead, as the Cavs ran the court and
took anything that even vaguely resembled an open shot. Bobby Sura and
Sean Kemp were the early hot hands for the Cavs.  The score was tied
at 6-6 3:30 into the period.  The Cavs posted a 15-0 run to take a
21-6 lead.  I thought that Pierce was adversely affected by his strep
throat infection, and that Sura's running opened up a lot of easy
opportunities for the Cavs.  When Potapenko got into foul trouble very
early in the game, Pitino went with Pervis Ellison, saving Battie to
play with the 2nd team.  The backups were more effective than in
recent games, when they did come into the game, helping to close the
Cavs lead to 30-20 by the end of the first quarter.

	The Cavs pacing began to flag a bit in the 2nd quarter,
especially with Sura and Knight on the bench.  The Cav's second unit
was able to keep the game in the 10 point range for most of the
quarter.   Just before the end of the quarter, the Celts made an 8-0
run to cut the Cavs lead to 53-44, but the Cavs got two easy scores
over the last 45 seconds of the half to restore their 10 points lead
57-47.  The fearsome pace of the first half, took it's toll on the big
men of both teams.  All three of Boston's centers ended the half with
3 fouls along with Declerq and Bryant for the Cavs.

	Pierce really came out fired up at the start of the second
half, diving for balls and generally running all over the place.
Slowly it began to pay off in the scoring column, as the Celts were
able to cut the Cavs lead to 4 at 65-61.  The Celts pretty much
stopped overplaying the passing lanes in fullcourt, and started
doubling down on Kemp.  The Celts got the game as close as 2 (69-67).
But McCarty came into the game at the end of the half and made a
series of brutal plays to help the Cavs take an 83-76 lead into the
4th.

	The Celts opened the period with a 9-2 run, capped off by a
Pierce 3 (Paul had 7 of the 9), giving the Celts their first lead
since 2-0 in the first quarter.  The lead bounced back a couple of
times, when Potapenko made one of the critcal plays of the games.  He
drove on Kemp, scored the basket, and drew Kemp's 5th foul of the
game.  His free throw put the Celts up for good at 90-88.  The game
was still close down the stretch.  Griffin really broke the Cav's
backs with 36 seconds left, when he hit a 3 with the shot clock
running down to give the Celts a 108-102 lead.  All of the C's
remaining points came from the free throw line, as they took the game
114-103.

	Believe it or not, the Celts really won this game at the free
throw line.  They were 38-45 (and several of those misses came when
the game was already effectively over).  Meanwhile the Cavs shot just
25-34.  The Celts needed that pad, as the Cavs outshot them .475-.432.
The C's also had a 16-11 advantage on the offensive boards (6
different players had 2 or 3 offensive rebounds). After committing 14
turnovers in the first half, the Celts ended the game with just 18.
Griffin, Pierce and Walker all played 43 minutes in the game.

Players:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Griffin, Walker, Potapenko
Cavs: Knight, Sura, Ferry, Kemp, DeClercq

Players:
Pierce: This was not Paul's best game as a Celtic, but probably his
grittiest.  He was really run into the ground by Bobby Sura in the 1st
quarter, and seemed to tire very quickly.  He came back with a huge
2nd half (23 points I think), and it was really his energy that
enabled the Celts to get within striking distance.  I actually thought
that Pitino left him in too long in the second half, as he looked
exhausted in the last couple of minutes of the game.  Pierce ended
with 30 points, 11 boards, 4 assists 4 steals and 7 turnovers in the
game.

Griffin: Despite all our enthusiasm for this guy we may have actually
underestimated him.  He had 23 points, 11 boards but just one assists
(he actually should have had several more, but his teammates refused
to cooperate).  He got to the free throw line 12 times (hit 9) and was
2-4 on threes.  Highest scoring total of his career and his first
double-double.

Anderson: 21 points, 4 assists and 0 turnovers.  Continues to play
extremely well, though the lack of assists is still perplexing.
Missed a couple of jumpers, which he has been hitting extremely well
so far.

Walker: Shot 1-11 in the first half.  Came back with a 4-6 in the
second.  Ended the game with 11 points and 6 boards.  I still wish he
would go to the offensive boards on nights like this.  And why can't
he face up and drive on guys like Danny Ferry.

Potapenko: He was clearly pressing in the first quarter, and made a
number of silly plays.  Really didn't play again until the 4th, when
he came into the game, scored 10 points and made several nice
defensive plays.  He ended up with 12 points and 6 boards in 17
minutes.

Ellison: was the reason the Vitally was available in the 4th, as he
came in a contributes 15 solid minutes at the center position.  Had 4
points, 3 boards and 2 steals.  Nice to see that Pitino can reverse
direction.

Battie: Kind of got squeezed for minutes in this game (8 minutes).
With pervis getting minutes at center, and Toine and Griffin getting
43 apiece at the forward spots, just not much time left for Tony.
Though, for the last 3 minutes of the third and the first 3 of the
4th, Mccarty was actually in at center.

Barros: A little bit better play from Dana, as he scored 5 and had 3
assists in his 9 minutes.  he made a couple of dubious plays toward
the end of the 1st quarter, though, and Rick popped Overton into the
game pretty quickly.

Williams: scored 6 in 10 minutes, and made a nice defensive play in
the 4th.

Overton: 5 minutes.  Not much to see.

McCarty: 0-4, 2 boards, 1 assists and 2 turnovers in 12 minutes.  He
was just brutal.  That 6-6 on threes opening night may have been the
worst thing that ever happened to him.

Coaching: Good to see Rick make the adjustment on his rotations.  It's
hard to imagine that this is the permanent solution, thought, as
Griffin, Pierce and Walker won't be able to consistently play 40+ all
season long (or else the Celts are going to have to change their
preferred tempo).  I guess we won't really know until Fortson gets
back how things will shake out (I bet Rick doesn't know for sure what
he'll do either).

Opposition Rookies of Note: Thought Andre Miller looked pretty good
(and like a lot of folks, I really liked his play in college).  He had
13 points and 4 assists in just 13 minutes.  Looks very mature for a
guy in his early rookie season.   You have to think that he'll move
Knight out of the starting spot by the beginning of next season.

Well, it looked for a while like the C's might fall to .500, but
instead they are now 5-3.  They play New Jersey (another let down game
on the horizon?) on Friday.

Bill C.
wfcooper@tiac.net