C's Caught From Behind! Again!: Atlanta 94- Boston 84

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	Another Bitter loss for the Celts.  Once again they seemingly
had the game under control (14 point lead with 2:00 to go in the 3rd).
The Hawks closed the 3rd with a 9-0 run to cut the C's lead to 5.  The
Celt's offense broke down completely in the 4th quarter, as the Hawks
held them to just 3 baskets (one of those was awarded off a Mutumbo
goaltend).  All told, over the last 14 minutes of the game the Celts
were outscored 35-11.

	Both teams got off to a slow start offensively.  The game was
tied at 8 apiece 5:00 into the quarter.  Finally the Celts got going
and put together a 12-4 run to take a 20-12 lead.  In the middle of
that run Pervis, got whacked and had to leave the game for medical
attention.  Lenny called timeout, and got his guys back on track.  The
Hawks rolled right back with an 8-0 run to tie the game.  The C's
ended the period, with another 8-2 streak to take a 28-22 lead into
the second.

	Rashawn McLeod was hot for the Hawks at the start of the 2nd
period, as the Hawks closed the gap to 3 at 3-27.  Cheaney's offense
made it's first tenuous appearance of the year, as he hit a couple of
floaters.  The Celts second unit righted things and pushed the lead
out to 8 at 35-27.  The two teams traded baskets for the rest of the
half, which was made notable by some strong play by Pervis, and Walker
getting the ball stuffed back in his face a couple of times.  The
scores was 49-42 C's at the end of the half.

	The Celts took advantage of Hawk fouls and a couple of nice
plays by Griffin to take their first double digit lead of the game at
59-46.  The lead stuck in that area for most of the quarter.  With the
score at 65-54, griffin jumped into a passing lane, stole the ball,
and drove down the court for the easy jam.  All of a sudden the Celts
(mostly 2nd team at this point) went a little haywire.  They started
running all over the court on defense.  Not really pressing in an
organized manner, but instead just trying to pick off a pass.  The
Hawks took advantage to break down the Celts offense for easy baskets
by Mutumbo and Wright.  For the moment it didn't seem to make much
difference, because Dana got fouled on a three point possession, then
hit a three, and the Celts actually increased the lead to 14 at 73-59.
Inevitably the Celts long jumpers began to miss, and the Celts were
not getting back and covering the basket after they put up the long
heaves.  The Hawks scored 9 unanswered point to close out the period,
cutting the Celts lead to 5 at 73-68.

	All of the motion was gone from the Celts offense in the 4th
quarter.  Mostly the Celts just settled for jump shots, but even when
they tried to drive to the basket it was all one on one.  The Celts
didn't score a basket until the 6:52 mark of the period, momentarily
getting the lead back (for the last time).  Even then, though, the
Hawks weren't that much more effective on offense then the Celts, and
as late as 3:41 in the game the Celts only trailed by a point after a
tough Pierce jumper fell through.  Down the stretch, the C's were even
more ineffective, as they were only able to score a pair of free
throws over the last 3:30.  The Hawks won going away 94-84.

	Mostly, looking at the stats the C's got outshot (.493-.385)
and outrebounded 47-30 (they were leading after the half).  The Celts
did do a nice job of minimizing their turnovers with just 12 (Hawks
18).  Unfortunately 4 of those came in the 4th quarter.  The Celts had
just 15 assists in the game (V.P. and Pervis combined for 6 of those).

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Griffin, Walker, Pervis
Hawks: Coles, Rider, Jackson, Henderson, Mutumbo

Players:
Anderson: really astonishing game for Kenny.  He scored 17 (7-17), had
1 assist and 4 steals.  I'm not sure that the one assist is indicative
of anything in Kenny's play (other than the fact that his role with
this team is not distributing the ball, at least as much as is normal
for a point guard), as it shows that the C's offense was very
stagnant.  He tried a number of his patented drives in the 4th, but
couldn't find an opening.

Walker: Only shot 6-19.  Seemed to me that every time, the Celts
offense couldn't find a decent shot, the ball would end up in 
Toine's hands with 2 second to go before the shot clock expired.  He
ended up taking a lot of rushed shot because of that.  Still in 31
minutes he had 16 points, 5 boards, 1 assist and 2 turnovers.

Pierce: 3rd nonexistent game in a row (excepting that first quarter
against the Bucks).  Had 9 points on 4-9 shooting, 3 boards and 2
assists in 35 minutes.  It's pretty clear that the other teams in the
league are onto Paul, and are not going to let him get any open 3's if
they can help it (he was 1-1 tonight).  Without the 3, and with no
transition Paul's offense seems pretty hard to find.  

Griffin: Not a bad game statistically.  He scored 14 (shot 4-5), had 3
boards and 3 steals in 35 minutes.  The problem with Griffin's egoless
game, is that he's not all that much help when the other team's
defensive pressure goes up.  You just can't go to him, his game just
doesn't work that way - everything he does is in the flow.  That's not
a criticism, I think the trade off (having a player who can contribute
a lot without his number ever being called ) is well worth it.  But if
you plan to play Adrian down the stretch, you had better have some
other players who can do some heavy lifting.

Pervis: You can see him getting stronger as he gets more playing time.
He had 3 points and 8 boards in 27 minutes tonight, and did a very
nice defensive job against Mutombo.  You could make an argument, that
it was really when the Hawks decided to stop forcing the ball to
Mutumbo, and go with other parts of their game, that they really began
to turn things around.  

Vitaly: after the strong effort against the Bucks, did not really play
well tonight.  made a couple of nice passes, but only scored 2 points
in 18 minutes.  More importantly he wasn't much of a presence on the
boards with just 2.

Barros: 12 points on 3-9 shooting, and also just 1 assist in 16
minutes.  The Celts keep trying to find him for open shots, but then
no one makes an effort to get back on defense in case he misses.  Even
if Dana can get back himself, he really can't stop anyone.

Battie: just 9 minutes tonight, and most of them at 4.  Still managed
to pick up 4 fouls though.

Cheaney: once again played decently, and even scored 3 baskets.  Still
cannot get his jumper to go though.

Williams: another quiet night. 3 points.

McCarty: Excellent night, as he managed to miss only 2 shots in 11
minutes.  At this rate Waltuh will hopefully not be missing any shots
at all, in the near future.

Coaching: Tommy came as close as he ever does to criticizing the
coaching staff tonight.  He claims that the responsibility for the
loss tonight, was the fault of the poor play of the 2nd unit because
"they destroyed the rhythm of the game".  Which is as good away as any
to explain the total inability of the starters to generate any offense
going down the stretch.  I just don't buy it.  I think the reason the
first team played badly in the 4th quarter, was that they played badly
(especially that they forgot what it is they do when things are going
well for them).  No doubt the second unit has it's problems, but the
fact is that the last 2 games the first team has been in good position
to win games, and have been unable to bring home the win in either
case.

The Celts are now a .500 club (that's played most of their first 14
games at home).  They're off until next Friday (?) when the Heat come
to town.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net