Bucks Catch Celts At End: Milwaukee 114- Boston 112

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	Just a miserable, slogging loss for the Celts.  They basically
had this game won, holding leads as big as 21 midway through the third
period.  With 7:00 to in the 4th period, they were up by 11 at 99-88.
But they could not stop Sam Cassell or Glenn Robinson down the
stretch, and the Bucks were all to effective in controlling the Celt's
stars.  The Bucks took their first lead since early in the first
quarter at 109-108 with just 1:00 to go.  They denied the Celts on
offense down the stretch and came away with the 114-112 lead.	

	Paul Pierce was in fuego at the start of the game.  He hit on
5 of his first 6 shots (a couple 3's in there) as  he scored 12 of the
Celts first 16 points, and assisted on the other 2 baskets.  Sam
Cassell was posting Anderson in the opening moments of the quarter,
and picked up 2 fouls on Kenny in the first 2 minutes of the game.
Pitino gambled, and tried to keep Anderson in the game, for a few more
minutes.  Incredibly, Kenny fouled Cassell again on the next Bucks
possession for his 3rd in 3:00.  Pitino went to Overton, but it really
didn't make much difference, as Walker and Pierce supplied all the
offense anyone could want.  Walker and Potapenko combined for a
particularly nice play late in the quarter, as Vitaly fed Toine
heading for the hoop.  Vitaly slid towards the basket down the other
side of the lane, and Walker returned the ball to him for an easy
layup.  Typical of the quarter, as the Celts led 42-24, with 17
points, from Pierce, 9 from Walker and 8 from V.P. The C's shot 67% in
the quarter.

	The second team was in at the start of the 2nd, and per usual,
the offensive output dropped considerably.  3:00 into the period, the 
Bucks had outscored the C's 8-2, and Pitno got Pierce back into the
game.  Showing how much things were going Pierce's wary this evening,
he no sooner got into the game, when an errant pass from Barros to
Battie dropped into his lap out by the 3 point line.  The 24 second
clock went off before Pierce's shot even reached the rim, and nestled
through for another 3.  Unfortunately for Paul, about 2 minutes later
he picked up his 3rd fouls of the half and had to leave.  Walker was
able to sustain the C's offense, pretty much by himself, and the C's
played some strong defense against the Bucks.  The Celts matched
Milwaukee 24-24 in the second, as the score was 66-48 at the end of
the half.

	The Bucks had obviously had a half time tutorial on how to
defend Paul Pierce, as 2 or 3 players would converge on him every time
he got the ball.  Meanwhile, Anderson picked up his 4th foul of the
game no more than 3:00 into the period, and once again sat in favor of
Overton.  Things might have turned in favor of the Bucks earlier, if
not for the continued strong play of Potapenko.  With 6:00 to go in
the period Vitaly scored a turn around to put the Celts up 84-63.  The
Bucks got back into the game with a quick 12-2 run, and despite a
McCarty 3, trailed by 13 92-79, going to the 4th.

	It looked like the Celts might have withstood the Bucks
charge, after Potapenko made another nice play to rebound and score a
missed Kenny Anderson drive (99-88: 7:00 to go).  The Bucks went on
another 11-0 run to tie the game, as the Celtics and particularly
Pierce were mired in offensive futility.  Finally Griffin sunk a pair
of free throws to put the Celts back up.  On the next Celts
posseseion, Walker hit a very deep 3, then Griffin stopped Robinson,
and Kenny made a nice drive to the basket to put the Celts up 106-101
with 3:52 left.  With 3:10 left Kenny found Vitaly on the right
baseline for a 12 foot jumper that made the score 108-103 with 3:10
left.  The Bucks put together 3 defensive stops, while Robinson,
Cassell and Allen all scored baskets to take the 109-108 lead with
1:10 to go.  Griffin got the Celts back the lead on more time, as he
hit a 10 foot jumper of an offensive board.  On the next play, Allen
drove on Pierce, and then hit a short jumper.  On the next play
Robinson blocked Walker's shot, and then the Celts (who were out of
timeouts) were forced to foul.  Thomas hit both free throws to put the
Bucks up by 3 with 12.3 left (113-110).  Anderson drove to the basket
on the next play, passing up the 3 point attempt.  He sank the shot,
and tried to throw himself into Reid to pick up a foul call.  The refs
were having none of that, though, and the score was 113-112.  The
Celts fouled Allen, who made the first free throw, but missed the
second.  The best the C's could do was a 60 foot shot by Barros, that
bounced off the rim, as the buzzer sounded.

	The Celts after the wonderful start shooting from the field,
ended up the game shooting .484 to the Bucks .538.  The difference was
probably the points scored off turnover stats, where the Bucks put up
20 points of 14 C's turnovers, while the Celts were only able to 8
points off 12 turnovers.  The Celts did have a nice 17-13 advantage on
the offensive boards, and shot 10-24 on threes.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Griffin, Walker, Ellison
Bucks: Cassell, Allen, Robinson, Traylor, Johnson

Players:
Pierce: to be honest Pierce has had two awful games in a row, with one
brilliant quarter stuck in the middle.  In the first quarter he was
just unstoppable, and did everything you could imagine wanting a guard
to do.  Then he got in foul trouble, and when the Bucks came out in
the second half, they were definitely looking for him.  Pierce tried
to drive the ball anyway, but either lost it, or put up a futile shot.
Despite his poor play in the second half, his game stats still look
decent. Had 22 points, 3 boards and 2 assists in 29 minutes.  He was a
negative weight on the team in the second half though.  

Walker: Played extremely well in the first half, and for the first
couple of minutes in the second.  After that, he disappeared also.
Did have a clutch 25 foot three, late in the game.  Scored 27 on 10-19
shooting, to go with 9 boards and 3 assists in 37 minutes.  Karl was
playing mind games with him in the second half.  The Bucks put Ervin
Johnson on him for a couple of plays in the second half.  Toine was so
confused by it he ended up taking a 3 pointer, rather than trying to
drive the ball.

Anderson: Miserable game for Kenny.  He was able to pick his spots and
drive to the basket a couple of times, but he didn't have a chance
against Cassell, who just seems bigger, stronger, faster and quicker
than Kenny.  What with his foul trouble, Kenny played only 16 minutes,
and had 8 points and 4 assists.

Potapenko: A real nice game for V. with 22 points (9-11). 11 boards (5
offensive) and 2 assists in 31 minutes.  For most of the game, the
Bucks left the paint pretty open, and concentrated on playing the
Celts outside people.  Anytime the middle is open, Vitaly is going to
thrive.  He can score fro the inside, or the high post (or pass from
there) or hit the wing jumper.

Griffin: unusually poor shooting performance for Griffin at 3-10
(though 2 of those were 3's).  The rest of his game was there, of
course as he had 9 boards, 4 assists and 3 steals in 34 minutes.

Cheaney: just thought I'd mention that Cheaney is playing pretty well.
He just seems snake bit.  None of his shots (even ones you know he can
make) seem to go in.  Tonight, he even got nice position on the
defensive board, and then lost control of the ball.  It went through
the hoop for a Milwaukee basket!  

Battie: very Limited minutes with V.P. playing so well.  He did a nice
job on the boards and made a couple of nice jumpers.  Had 6 points and
3 boards ion 11 minutes.

Ellison: got just 6 minutes but acquitted himself well.  Obviously the
Bucks weakness is center (do you think Karl likes it that way?).  the
Celts trio made hay, as they combined for 32 points and 17 boards.

Overton: got his most minutes with the team at 22.  continues to take
somewhat forced shots and was 1-6.  Did have 5 assists, though I think
that was mostly because he was on the court for Pierce's hot streak.

McCarty: didn't shoot the ball much, so I guess he had a good game by
Waltuh standards.  5 points in 11 minutes.

Dana: couldn't put him on the court against Cassell, so just didn't
get to play.  0-3 in ten minutes.

Williams: no real factor in the game, which surprised me, since the
same factor that made things smooth for Vitaly should have worked in 
Eric's favor too.

Coaching:  I was going to throw Rick a real compliment tonight.  Early
in the third quarter, the Bucks had scored 6 straight points to cut
the Celts lead down to 13 at 74-61.  Pitino called a timeout, and when
the Celts came back they ran off a couple of real nice offensive
sequences and pushed the lead back up to 21 at 84-63.  I though Rick
had done a real nice job of using a timeout constructively.  Later in
the game, though, when the Bucks were making their big push, Rick was
calling timeouts left and right, to absolutely no purpose at all.  I
think the Celts were down to just 1 timeout with 5:00 to go, and used
their last one with 1:10 to go.  And none of them did any good.

	I thought the big difference in the game, was that the refs,
after calling some really minor fouls in the first half, backed way
off in the second.  The Milwaukee players seemed to adjust, both in
the sense that they were able to score even though they were arguably
fouled by their Celtic defender, and that they made full use of the
latitude  provided by the refs to use all those little professional
tricks on the C,s shooters.  On the last Celtic possession of the
game, Kenny drove to the basket and tried to draw a foul (pretty much
by jumping into a Buck defender).  The refs just weren't making calls
like that in the second half.

Opposition Teams of Note: Just wanted to point out one thing I really
like about the Bucks.  Almost all of their offensive fire power in at
1, 2 or 3.  So if you have a defensive liability at one of those three
spots it's really hard to hide it against them.  The Celts could have
tried Griffin against Cassell tonight (not to say it would have
worked), but that would have required Anderson to guard Allen.
Reminds me of the late 80's Pistons, when they had Thomas, Dumars and
Dantley\Aguirre starting and Vinnie coming off the bench.  It's also a
good argument for moving Walker to the 3 spot to consolidate the Celts
best scorers in their lineup.

The Celts are now 7-6.  They're in Atlanta tomorrow night.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net