The Pacers

[opi@unesco.org]

-The Celtics (20-23) go into the Pacers (28-15) rematch about as healthy
as they have ever been all year.

-Our three full-time available starters last month (Vitaly, Antoine and
Kenny) deserve credit for helping the Celts stay above .500 in January
(memorable wins over Seattle, Sacramento, Toronto and Phoenix) despite
injuries to key players.

-Battleship Potapenko upped his minutes to 25.4 last month and averaged
8.1 rebounds and 10.7 points in 9.3 shot attempts per game. He actually
had his sorriest month in terms of FG% (.468) and FT%. (.682) thereby
lowering his season averages to .490 and .726 respectively, but he also
dramatically cut down his fouls per game (2.6 per game versus 3.3
before) despite an increase in minutes. Overall, he was a reliable,
productive and promising role player at age 24 in the Griffin mold. I
wouldn't trade him for Ilgauskus (even if he weren't signed for the
maximum 71 million) much less Geiger. Word to Michael Holley: shut up
already!

-Antoine Walker had his most promising overall month  in quite some
time, averaging 4.07 assists, 8.33 rebounds and 1.27 steals to go with
his 21.7 ppg (.429FG%, .722FT%). His assists-to-turnover ratio of 1.33
may be a new high for him and is nothing to be ashamed of. For example,
Paul Pierce averaged a 0.82 assists-to-turnover ratio last month and is
at 1.14 for his career (Antoine BTW is 1.02 for his career).

-Kenny Anderson finished with a spectacular 5.27 assists-to-turnover
ratio. To put this in perspective, the NBA league leader in assists,
Jason Kidd, has a 2.90 ratio this season. John Stockton's career average
is an awesome 3.90, while Gary Payton's is 2.76. So far in Y2K, Kenny
Anderson has averaged exactly 1.0 turnover in 33 minutes per game while
playing all 15 games. He also is averaging 1.73 steals per game (he
averaged over 1.9 per game twice in his career with NJ and Portland).

-The Celts (4-17 road) tonight face the toughest home team in basketball
bar none (18-2). The Pacers bring a 15-game home winning streak into
this grudge match, including that big (and frankly inevitable)
Bird-coached win to break the Fakers winning streak last month.

-Back on 22 November, the Celts defeated Bird's Pacers for the first
time 95-85 despite only 11 points on 5-14 shooting from Antoine Walker,
not to mention just 5 rebounds and 0 assists. No Celt scored more than
17 points (Pierce) for the Celts that night. They held a tired Pacers
team to a 38.2FG%.

-The Pacers this year are basically built around three guys. The IMO
borderline All Star Reggie Miller (19.4 ppg, 2.4 assists, 2.9 rebounds
on a .452FG%) and Jalen Rose (15.2 ppg, 4.0 assists, 4.5 boards on
.461FG%) are the scorers. Dale Davis averages 10 boards and 11.4 points.
He is in the NBA top-ten in rebounding and field goal percentage.

-The Kevin Garnett wannabe Jonathan Bender has struggling at 2.2 ppg.
Rik Smits is averaging a microscopic 4.8 boards in roughly the same
playing time as Potapenko.

-Chris Mullin may be running near empty at just 4.2 ppg and .417
shooting in 29 games. Mark Jackson is at 7.7 ppg on .423 shooting but is
averaging 8.3 assists.

-Shooting fools Austin Croshere (9.6ppg on .408FG%) and Travis Best (8.0
ppg with a .306FG% on treys) have posed threats to the Celtics in the
past.

-The Pacers are now a poor rebounding team (41.7 rpg for a minus 2.8
deficit per game) that can probably be worn down under some steady
pressure from our big guys. The Pacers permit opponents a .445FG% but
the Celts will probably have to do better than that for big stretches
just to stay in the game tonight.

-I'm very curious to see if Fortson will improve on his 2 minutes from
the last game. Months ago, I (and Alex Wang also) posted some of
Fortson's big stats last season against the top playoff teams, notably
the Flakers. They strongly illustrated how false the anonymous GM's
recent claim was about Fortson being no good against the NBA upper
echelon. When I have the time I'll again re-post some Fort stats from
last year. The important thing is to not believe everything you hear
during this current Spintino cycle (Fortson is demanding too much money,
Fortson is no good against real teams etc.) This is really not about
that, IMHO.

Go Boston Celtics!


Joe