C's Come Up Short: Indiana 99- Boston 96

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	Real nice effort by the Celts tonight, maybe the best road
effort of the year.  They executed well, and avoided the dreaded drop
off by the bench (due to some adroit substitution by Pitino).  They
led 82-81 with 6:00 to go.  The Pacers quickly got the lead back, and
while the Celts never trailed by more than 4, the rest of the way,
They could never get the lead back.

	The game started out with the Pacers going in to Smits.  For a
few moments Vitaly was able to hold the line, but he quickly picked up
2 fouls doing so.  With Potapenko out in favor of Battie, Smits was
pretty much in a score-at-will zone.  The Pacers pushed out to a 11-6
lead.  The Celts got the Pacers lead to 1, behind a couple of nice
plays from Battie (a Block and a nice offensive rebound to beat the 24
second clock).  Pitino was substituting early and often, clearly
intending to avoid the bench collapses that the Celts have suffered
earlier in the season against the Pacers.  He never had less than 2
starters on the floor at any time in the first half, and it seemed to
pay off, as the Celtics were able to stay even against the Pacers
bench, ending the period, trailing 26-23.

	The Celts got some nice work from Fortson early in the 2nd, as
they were able to briefly take at lead at 31-30.  Fortson picked up
his second fouls and had (had?) to leave the game.  With no presence
on the offensive boards, the Celts were having a very hard time
getting any offense going, and were held without a basket for nearly 4
minutes.  During that span, Dana extended himself, while trying to hit
a jumper and beat the 24 second clock.  He hurt his back and had to
leave the game (but was able to return just before the end of the
half).   The Celts fell behind 37-31.  Smits and Miller came back off
the bench, and Smits picked up where he left off, in the first
quarter.  The Pacers got the lead up to double digits a couple of
times, though the Celts were able to cut the lead to 8 at the half
53-45.  Smits accounted for 18 first half points, while Anderson and
Walker carried the load for the C's offensively.

	With Potapenko back in the game at the start of the third, the
Celts were able to stuff Smits back in the bottle (at least for the
moment).  The Celts got an early 8-0 run to cut the lead to 58-54.
With 6:46 to go in the period, Potapenko picked up his third foul
against Smits, and went out of the game again.  Behind some nice work
by Toine, the Celts managed another brief lead at 67-66.  Smits began
to hit some more shots,though, and by the end of the quarter, the
Pacers were up 75-72.

	Somewhat surprisingly (at least to me), Vitaly started the
4th.  The Celts got a good effort from him, and the got the lead back
at 82-81.  Immediately after that play (a V.P. jam) Walker fouled Dale
Davis for his 5th of the game.  Battie came in and immediately scored
a pair of baskets (feeds from Vitaly and Griffin): The second tied the
game at 86.  Rose broke the tie on the next possession (the Pacers
would lead the rest of the way).  Both clubs went into a dry spell,
and the game went without any scoring until the 4:40 mark.  Vitaly
really hustled to dig out an offensive board, and got the ball to
Toine, who drew the foul from Rose (He hit one, to get the C's to
within 1) at 88-87.  The Celts defense broke down on the next 2
possessions, leading to a Davis jam, and a Best 3 (that sequence
probably lost the game for the Celts).  Still the C's continued to dig
it out.  Vitaly combined a drive and a lurch with a hook shot to get
the Celts to within 2 at 93-91. On the next play, Vitaly fouled out of
the game (and Smits converted both free throws to put the Pacers up
95-91).  The Celts closed to with 1 again on a miraculous drive by
Pierce (97-96: 11.6 left).  The C's fouled intentionally (99-96) and
had 10.3 to organize a 3 point hot to tie the game.  They got a half
way decent look for Barros, but his shot was a bit long and off to the
left.  

	The Celts lost this one at the foul line.  They made 7-13,
while the Pacers put in 24-30.  The shooting was very close
(.477-.483) with the Celts making up that small difference at the
three point line.  The C's had a nice 13-7 edge on the offensive
boards but committed 3 more turnovers.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Griffin, Walker, Potapenko
Pacers: Jackson, Miller, Rose, Davis, Smits

Players:
Walker: I thought, watching the game, that Toine had a pretty
reasonable shot selection, but he ended up the game shooting 11-27.
He scored 27 points, had 8 boards, 1 assists, 2 steals and 3 turnovers
in 42 minutes.  He tried hard to take the ball down low, but most of
the time, the Pacers did a good job of closing him down.  He wasn't
able to find good angles to pass the ball out.

Anderson: For the first 3 quarters, Kenny had a very strong game,
especially when Jackson was on the floor.  Down the stretch Bird went
with Best, and Kenny did not do nearly as well against him.  Anderson
shot 8-18, had 16 points, 7 assists and 2 assists in 36 minutes.

Pierce: quiet game, but he didn't force anything.  Pitino played him
against Rose, who actually had a very good game.  Paul had 16 points
(7-13), 5 boards, and 3 assists in 39 minutes.

Potapenko: Vitaly had a huge impact in the 20 minutes he played with
10 points and 12 boards.  Smits shot 11-15, and I'd guess that he was
1-5 against Vitaly and 10-10 against everyone else.  That makes the 2
fouls that Vitaly picked up on the offensive end (one of which was a
bit of a phantom), all the worse.  If Vitaly had avoided the offensive
fouled and played another 10 minutes it would have had a big impact on
the final result.

Battie: despite all that, Tony is showing occasional signs of having a
pulse.  He was useless against Smits, but the rest of his game was
decent.  He had 8 points and 9 boards in 29 minutes.  

Griffin: he started the game on Miller, and together with Cheaney, did
a pretty good job of keeping Reggie in check.  Unfortunately, Griffin
rarely touched the ball on the offensive end, and got just 4 points, 1
board, and 1 assists in 24.

Cheaney: also did a nice job on "D", and chipped in on the offensive
end with 7 points in 29 minutes.

Barros: Scored 5 points and had 1 assists in 13 minutes.  He seemed to
be in pretty bad shape, when he hurt his back, in the 2nd quarter.  He
came back later in the game, and didn't seem any the worse for wear,
though.

Fortson: 3 points, 5 boards in 5 minutes. to go with the 3 fouls.

McCarty: 1 assist, 1 board, 5 minutes.

Coaching: Pitino was very mindful of the beating that the C's bench
had taken at the hands of the Pacers reserves in the previous
meetings.  He was very, very careful to keep 2 starters out on the
court at all times.  I thought that in the first half, it didn't work
so well, basically just stretching the misery out over 12 minutes,
instead of the short sharp collapse taking place over 2 or 3.  In the
second half, it was very effective.  The Celts didn't really have a
let down in the whole half.  If you ignore Fortson and McCarty, the
Celts basically went with 8 players tonight.

The Celts are now 20-24.  They host Miami tomorrow night.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com