Philly Deep Sixes Celts: Philly 102- Boston 97

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	The Celts losing streak is up to double digits, as home
cooking did not seem to help the cause.  Early on in the game, the
Celts ran, and Kenny Anderson was extremely hot.  As the game wore on,
the Sixers got the tempo of the game down to their liking, Kenny
cooled off, and as usual, Brown murdered Pitino on the matchups.
After scoring 60 points in the first half the Celts were held to just
37 in the second.  Once again, Pitino inserted Cheaney into the
starting lineup to provide defense against Alan Iverson

	The Sixers got off fast in the game, and jumped out to a 10-4
lead.  Anderson brought the Celts back with three point shooting.  The
game was tied at 24 with about 3:00 to in the period.  Barros and
Williams came into the game, and exploded offensively, leading the
Celts on a 13-2 run.  The C's led 34-23 heading to the second period.

	The air went out of the Celts balloon at the start of the
quarter, as they were able to score just 2 points over the first 5:00
of the period. The Sixers took advantage to close most of the gap,
getting to within 2 at 36-34.  Finally Walker and Anderson got back
into the game and stemmed the tide.  The 2 clubs traded streaks over
the last portions of the half.  The Sixers wound up with a 6-2 run
(all 6 points coming from Matt Geiger).  The Celts led by 5 (60-55) at
the end of the half.

	The Celts played well at the outset of the second half, and
were able to get the lead up to 9 points several times in the period.
Anderson was still hot, and the Sixers were showing some frustration
(Iverson and Hill both picked up T's).  The Celts were up 76-67 when
Kenny went out of the game, and it was like someone had pulled the
plug on the C's offense.  With Anderson on the bench they scored just
4 points over the last 4 minutes, and Sixers went on an 11-4 run to
close to within 2, 80-78, at the end of the period.

	Matt Geiger continued to play a big role in the Philly offense
in the second half.  Danny Fortson showed a surprising degree of
offensive virtuosity,early in the period, as he dribbled behind hid
back, while driving the lane for a score to put the Celts up by 4.
Larry Brown switched up his backcourt, putting Iverson at the point
and McKie in at the shooting guard.  This basically forced Pitino to
choose between playing Kenny on Iverson or McKie.  Pitino chose McKie,
and Aaron took Kenny for 7 big points down the stretch.  The Sixers
outscored the Celts 14-3 through the middle of the period, on their
way to a 92-87 lead.  The Sixers got their lead as high as 9 (100-91)
with 2:30 to go in the game.  The Celts offense dhows the stretch was
pretty much a study in frustration (they got to the free throw line a
couple of times, but were only able to score 1 basket over the last
4:00 of the game).  The final was 102-97.

	Once again the Celts got many fewer opportunities at the free
throw line than the Sixers (38-17), though the Celts minimized the
impact by hitting 15 of theirs.  The C's shot just .413 (Philly
(.468), and had more turnovers (thanks to McKie who had 7 steals).
The Celts did show a little more activity on the boards than in recent
games, and they outrebounded Philly 51-40 and 15-7 on the offensive
boards.  One thing that was unusual about the game, was that the
Sixers seemed to get an uncommon number of lucky bounces of the rim on
their shots.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Cheaney, Pierce, Walker, Potapenko
Sixers: Snow, Iverson, Lynch, Hill, Ratliff

Players:
Anderson: kept the Celts in the game for a long time with his
shooting.  He was 8-16, and 4-7 on threes.  And as usual, was
perfectly willing to play at a slow down pace that favored the C's
opposition.  

Walker: very tough shooting game for Toine, who seems to have lost his
way a bit.  Hill did a good job of keeping Toine from taking all of
his pet shots right around the basket, and from the 8-10 foot range,
Toine was ineffective.  The lack of a solid 15 foot jumper really hurt
him tonight.  He had a pretty solid game otherwise, though, with 9
boards, 6 assists and 3 blocks.  It would have been fun when Brown
went to the Iverson-Mckey backcourt to see Pitino come back with
Walker-Cheaney (not claiming it would have worked, but it would have
been a much more interesting way of digesting our poison).

Pierce: was able to take advantage of Kukoc a few times, and got to
the line 8 times.  The Sixers seemed to be well aware of the over the
top pass Walkers been throwing to Pierce so much recently, and
defended it pretty well.  Paul had 18 points in 43 minutes.

Barros: another nice game for Dana, especially in that stretch in the
first quarter.  He had 11 points and 4 assists in 17 minutes.

Cheaney: especially early, the Celts tried to go down low to Calbert
with some success.  He shot 5-7 and had 10 points in 30 minutes.  Once
again he did a creditable job on Iverson, with quite a bit of help
from hit friends.  Iverson seemed to realize that he would have a
tough time doing anything, and minimized his role in the offense.
Then, when Cheaney fouled out (about 3 minutes to go) he did a bit of
damage down the stretch (though I think that Philly already had the
game won).

Battie: somehow got credit for 11 boards (5 offensive) in 19 minutes.
He must have stood the scorekeeper to a beer before the game.  He had
2 points on 1-5 shooting.

Potapenko: ever since Kenny went on his shooting streak, Vitaly has
been in the dumps.  No one else on the team gets him the good shooting
opportunities like Kenny does, and Anderson was looking for his shot
tonight.  Vitaly host 1-7 and had 2 points and 2 boards in 13 (?)
minutes.

Fortson: 4 points and 9 boards in 18 minutes.  Missed one jumper
tonight.  He got some offensive boards, but couldn't find anyway to
put the ball back in agasint the bigger Sixers (sometimes, he should
just pass the ball back out).

Williams: scored 6 in the first quarter, and disappeared for the rest
of the game.  Mostly due to the Cheaney-Iverson matchup of course.

Griffin-McCarty: well, Waltuh had 2 assists.

The Celts are now 30-46.  They get the Hawks on Monday ( a sure win,
right?)

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net

P.S.  I thought I'd mention one of the petty annoyances of listening
to Mike Gorman (who I generally like, though you can see why he needs
a color man).  He openly roots for short games.  I gather that he has
a tough schedule, but he actually prefers to see the refs not make
foul calls if it won't effect the outcome of the game, and seems
resentful if a coach calls a timeout in the late stages of a blowout.
On bad nights, I'm inclined to agree with him, but it's surprising for
a pro to be so open about it.