Hornets Outlast Celts: Charlotte 105- Boston 102

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	In contrast to the game on Friday, this was a very well
played, tight game.  After a quick start, the Celts feel behind and
trailed by the low double digits for much of the game.  They made a
last minute run to get within 3, and had 3 chances on the last
possession to tie the game.  Shots by Anderson, Pierce and Walker all
fell short though.  Eric Williams started for the C's.

	The Celts came out strong, with Walker doing a great job of
distributing, and the team as a whole playing very solid defense.
They jumped out to a 10-0 lead.  Eddie Jones began to exploit Pierce
on the perimeter, and the Hornets got back into the game.  The C's
still led 22-17 with about a minute to go, but the Hornets ended with
a 7-0 run, including a Derrick Coleman trey at the buzzer to give the
Hornets a 24-22 lead.

	At the start of the 2nd, Paul Silas went to his bench (Brad
Miller is back from the IR), and the Hornets bench pretty easily
outplayed the Celt's.  The lead was up to 32-27 when Pitino went back
to Anderson, Walker and Pierce.  Silas stayed with his backups and
they continued to produce.  Along with the usually dependable (against
the Celts anyway), Miller and Eddie Robinson, the Hornets got some of
the best play I've seen out of Baron Davis.  The put up a 10-1 run to
push the lead up to 48-35.  The Celts fought back and were able to cut
the lead back down to 9 (55-46) at the half.

	Walker continued to concentrate on passing the ball, at the
start of the second half.  Unfortunately the Celts weren't
concentrating on catching his passes and converting them into baskets.
The Hornets lead continued to hang around the ten point mark. With
about 5:00 to go in the period, Williams and Anderson hit consecutive
3's and the Celts put together a lightning 8-0 run to cut the lead
down to 70-67.  After Mason scored a basket, Pitino called a 20 second
timeout.  The Hornets took advantage of the respite to regroup, and
came out with a 10-2 run of their own to pushed the lead back up to
83-69.  They led at the end of the period 83-73.

	Once again, Silas went heavily to his bench the start of the
fourth (and would stay with them almost the entire quarter).  The
Celts managed a run with about 8:00 to go, scoring 7 straight to cut
the lead to 5.  With the score at 91-86, Miller drove the ball, but
missed a pretty easy shot.  Fortson got the ball back, but seemed to
expect a foul call to be made.  Nothing was called, and the Hornets
grabbed the ball away and scored on a Robinson jam.  That triggered an
8-2 run, and the Celts were back down 99-88.  Walker and Williams led
the C's back with a 12-4 run over the last 3:00 of the game.  The
Hornets had the ball and a 3 points lead with 40 seconds to go.  Mason
tried to back down, but the Celt held and he ended up missing a
turnaround with about 18 seconds left.  Anderson rushed the ball down
court, and forced a tough 3 pointer with 8 seconds left (he probably
was hoping to get a foul call).  The Celts, rather luckily, got the
ball back.  After a timeout, they inbounded the ball, and got a
pressured 3 by Pierce from the top of the arc.  It missed, but the
rebound came out long to Dana, who pitched the ball to Walker standing
unguarded at the 3 point line.  Walker launched in time, but his shot
was off to the right, and the Hornets escaped with a 105-102 lead.

 	The Hornets outshot the Celts .506-.446.  The Celts probably
lost the game at the free throw line (23-36).  They had a couple more
offensive boards.  As a result of being very careful with the ball
(just 11 turnovers), they also had an edge in turnovers.  The Hornets
bench outscored the C's 51-22. The only Hornet to play over 27 minutes
was Mason (40).  I kind of assumed that Silas was playing his bench
because they were doing so well.  In fact, he may have been resting
the starters for the playoffs.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Williams, Walker, Potapenko
Hornets: Wesley, Jones, Mason, Coleman, Campbell

Players:
Walker: Toine flirted with the triple double tonight, falling short in
rebounds (8).  That's probably about where Toine's game is these days.
He's having an easier time picking up assists than boards.  He had 21
points, 10 assists, 2 steals, and just 1 turnover (much
underemphasized factor in Walker's late season improvement has been
assist to turnover ratio).  Late in the game, when the Celts needed
points he drove the ball impassively against Mason, for important
scores.

Williams: nice game for Eric, who had 20 points and 7 boards in 32
minutes.  He was just 1-4 on threes, getting most of his points and
his 9 trips to the line, driving to the basket.  he did one thing I
hate to see.  Late in the second a quarter a lose ball bounced out to
him about 18 feet from the basket.  Instead of taking the jumper from
there, he went back behind the line and launched.  It missed, of
course (it nearly always does).  Eric did a commendable job on Mason
in the post.  The Celts did not make the usual mistake of doubling and
as a result Mason had an ineffective night on offense.

Pierce: as usual, had big problems applying pressure to Jones on the
perimeter.  Eddie scored 25 in 25 minutes of PT and was 2-3 on trays).
Pierce shot the ball poorly himself at 4-14, but made up at least part
of the deficit by going 9-13 on free throws.

Anderson: Hey, he had 3 assists tonight.  To go with 12 points.
Actually Walker acted the point guard for the first 3 quarters, and as
a practical matter, Anderson was an off guard.

Fortson: a little lost among the tall timber and had just 6 points and
7 boards in 16 minutes (mortal by his recent standards).
Unfortunately his floor game was rather poor, and he made a number of
mistakes passing that led to 3 easy baskets for the Hornets.

Potapenko: had 9 points and 4 boards in 24 minutes.  He hit 1 jumper,
and got several easy baskets out running Eldon Campbell up the floor.
He also did a really nice job of defending Campbell and got 2 steals
stepping around him in the low post.  Campbell had 2 points and 0
boards in 21 minutes.

Battie: Hit a couple of turnarounds and had 6 points and 3 baords in
15 minutes.  

Barros: not such a good game.  Had 7 points and 1 assists in 18
minutes.  shot just 3-8, and I thought that Barron Davis took
advantage a few times.

McCarty: got Eric Williams relief minutes, and made a couple of good
plays.  Shot 1-4 for 3 points in 17 minutes.

Cheany/Griffin: got just 4 minutes between them.

Opposition Playoff Chances of Note:  Last time we saw the Hornets I
was pretty unimpressed with the bench (except for Eddie Robinson).
Maybe this game was a fluke, but the bench looked pretty tough today.
Baron Davis had the best game I've seen from him with 10 points and 5
assists in 23 minutes.  Brad Miller was back from the IRA, and even
Chucky Brown got into the act.  They've won something like 12 of the
last 14, and look like they can do some damage.  it'd be fun to see
them against Indy in the second round (Miller vs. Jones), though I'm
sure that Philly and Orlando have other ideas.

The Celts are now 33 and 47.  They play Tuesday in Washington.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net