Hey, They Do Have a Bench!: Boston 109- New Jersey 96

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	A good solid win by the Celts, featuring a real nice stint
from the bench (with Overton at the point).  The Celts did a nice job
of exploiting matchups, and played smart team ball

	The C's got off to another good start, thanks mainly to
Griffin, who cashed in 3 offensive rebounds in the first 6:00 of the
game.  The Celts jumped out to a 15-8 lead.  Unfortunately for the
Celts, Stephon Marbury wasn't singlehandedly shooting the Nets out of
the game.  Instead he was doing a nice job of penetrating and hitting
Harris and Van Horn for some open shots.  The Nets pulled to within  a
point at 15-14, and managed to keep the game close for the rest of the
period.  The Celts got a 3 from McCarty to push the margin up to 4, at
the end of the quarter, 29-25.

	The C's continued to hit the offensive boards in the second
quarter, and got the lead up to 7 at 37-30.  Marbury began to lose
patience with the pass first, shoot second style (or maybe it was
working), and began to take a lot more of the Nets shots, which pretty
much ended their offensive production.  Meanwhile, in an interesting
variation on his usual substitution pattern, Pitino had Barros in with
the starters for virtually all of the second quarter.  Dana got some
good looks, but failed to really do any damage (he had one 3). The
Celts still managed to forge a double digit lead, more due to the Nets
ineptitude (not to mention Marbury's mega-ego).  The C's led at the
end of the half 51-40.

	The Celts made a big push at the start of the third, as they
started out with a 8-4 run to stretch the lead up to 15.  Marbury
began to heat up thought from long range, as New Jersey cut the lead
to 6, at 71-65.  Briefly Pitino went to Dana, in relief of Kenny, but
then he quickly switched ove3r to Doug Overton.  It didn't immediately
pay dividends though, as the Nets had actually reduced the C's lead to
5 (81-76) at the end of the period. The Nets outscored the Celts
36-30.

	The C's opened the 4th with Overton, Battie, Williams and
McCarty off the bench to go along with Griffin.  It was really Griffin
who got things started on defense.  Then Overton and Williams
contributed on offense, and Battie came up big on the defensive end
with 3 blocks.  The bench more or less broke the game open with a 13-1
run at the start of the 4th, to increase the lead to 17.  It really
wasn't until the 5:30 mark, that Pitino went back to the starters.
Marbury, and Sherm Douglas tried to make it close, but the starting
unit stayed solid (big plays from Walker and Pierce down the stretch)
and the Celts came away with the 109-96 lead.

	Pretty much a straight forward field goal percentage win, as
the Celt shot .500 to the Nets .420.  A big part of that was the Celts
16 offensive rebounds and the fine job they did on converting them
into easy baskets. Even though, the C's had a number of offensive
rebounds converted into baskets, they still managed to assist on 26 of
43 baskets (take out the put backs and it must have been 26 out of
35).  The Celts continue to commit a lot of turnovers, and to be
relatively unsuccessful at forcing them (18-16 tonight).  Overall, I
bet this is one of the most un-Pitino like teams Rick has ever
coached.


Players:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Griffin, Walker, Potapenko
Nets: Marbury, Harris, Gill, Van Horn, McIlvaine

Players:
Walker: A real solid effort by Toine.  He definitely gets up against
Van Horn, and is very determined at putting the ball on the floor
against Keith.  I know I write this every time the Celts play the
Nets, but that doesn't make it any less true.  Toine can drive the
ball on any power forward in the NBA, not just Van Horn.  Why won't
he?  Walker had 25 points (9-17), 7 boards, 5 assists and 3 turnovers
in 33 minutes.  You gotta love him, even while he makes you shake your
head.

Griffin: now here's a guy you can love without shaking your head.
Actually I was going to say, that I didn't think Adrian had one of his
better games tonight.  He came out early and snookered Kendall Gill
for  3 offensive rebounds in the first quarter.  Personally I think
that Gill is one of those "let sleeping dogs lay" players.  Don't get
him excited.  Anyway, Gill did get a bit excited.  He stripped the
ball away from Adrian a couple of times, and even pulled Griffins
favorite maneuver back on him, stripping a rebound.  But at the end,
it was Griffin who gave the back-up unit the spark that actually broke
the game open for the Celts.  Grif ended up with a paltry 16 points,
11 boards, 5 assists, 3 steals and 4 turnovers.  Not too bad for an
off game.  I do think that if Adrian is going to help out the second
unit they could at least do him the courtesy of passing him the ball
occasionally.  Grif had to go steal it from the Nets to get a touch.

Pierce: Real solid game for Paul.  17 points, 8 boards, 5 assists and
2 steals.  He did get called for charging twice, but other than that,
played a very heady game.

Anderson: Actually until Marbury went out of his head in the third, I
thought, that with plenty of help, Kenny was doing a pretty good job
on D.  Marbury just started jacking up three's from everywhere.  Kenny
only shot 3-9 (I was very surprised to see that, as I thought his
stroke was pretty good.).  He finished with 4 assists which put him in
4th place for the game.

Barros/Overton:  I can't really say that I'm very impressed by
Overton.  He dribbles the ball way to much, to no real purpose.  He
doesn't seem to finish, or have real good court vision.  His jumper is
okay, but nothing more than that.  Still, he was a lot more effective
than Dana has been, and the 2nd team was effective with him in.  Doug
scored 6 points, had 1 assist and 1 steal in 11 minutes.  When Dana
was in the game, a real intense effort was made to get him some shots.
In 12 minutes, he got off 8 shots, but unfortunatley only made 2.  To
be honest (and maybe I'm just being stubborn here), I didn't see
anything from Overton, that Dana hasn't done (and usually better) in
the past, but Dana is not on his game right now.

Battie: real nice game by Tony.  Had 10 points, 9 boards and 4 blocks
in 27 minutes.  Very active under the defensive basket in the key 4th
quarter.  Pitino made the comment, that he thought that Battie had
been bothered by fouls a lot this year and it had inhibited his play.
If that's true, you wonder why Pitino doesn't tell Tony to play with
both guns blazing all the time, and then use Pervis (who didn't play
again tonight) when things do go badly with the fouls.

Vitaly: A good night for Vitaly also.  Not that New Jersey is exactly
stocked at the center position, but still, V.P. and Battie combined
for 20 points, 17 boards and 5 blocks.  Of course tomorrow night, it
might be 4, 8 and 1.

Williams: 6 points and 2 assists in 15 minutes.  I thought his line
would look better than that.  He continues to play actively and
aggressively.

McCarty: Had a couple of good moments tonight (a three and a nice look
to Battie).  In general not playing well, though, and is the prime
candidate to lose playing time when Fortson gets back.

Coaching:  It looked in the first half, like Pitino might continue
from the Cleveland game, his handling of the bench.  But in the second
half, he went back to his normal practice, and it worked out well.
I'm impressed that Pitino is clearly committed to developing the
bench, and I think he has every intention of going 10 men deep the
whole season.  And is apparently willing to suffer a bit for it early
in the season.  I'm not sure his approach is right, but in the long
run determination is probably more important than technique when it
comes to having a strong 2nd team.

Opposition Player of Note: skipping over Marbury (who is certainly
notable), I'd just like to ask the list a question.  How come Sherm
never really caught on anywhere?  He played extremely well tonight,
and, like every other time I've seen him since he left the Celts. I
think he's better than quite a few other points who are starting
around the league.  Maybe it was just that he got his big chances (C's
and Bucks) an teams  coached by Chris Ford.  

The Celts are now 6-3.  They travel to Miami for a game tomorrow
night.

Bill C.
wfcooper@tiac.net