Toine Carries C's to P.L.:Boston 99- New Jersey 96

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	This may n ot have been Toine's prettiest game as a Celt but
it was probably his grittiest, as he picked the C's up and carried
them (more or less singlehandedly) to their 3rd road win of the
season.  Walker carried on his never ending dialog with the Nets
management about Keith Van Horne's "D" (or lack thereof) to the tune
of 39 points, including the last 7 of the game.  Eric Williams didn't
play tonight due to injury, and Calbert Cheaney got the start.

	Early on things did not look quite so promising. The Nets
jumped out to an early lead (just 11-9) on the strength of strong
outside shooting by  Kittles and Gill.  Walker did score 6 of the
first 8 points for the C's.  Kenny Anderson seemed to bothered by his
ongoing pulled hamstring, for nearly the entire game, leaving the
court at least once to get treatment in the locker room.  It was a
continuing surprise every time he reentered the game.  The Celts tied
the game at 17-17, after Doug Overton entered the contest in relief of
Kenny and got the Celts to fast break baskets.  The Nets came back
with a 10-2 lead.  Pitino finally got Fortson into the game, and as
usual positive things happened as the Celts closed the lead to 9-24 at
the end of the quarter.

	The bench together with Toine continued to be relatively
productive tying the game on a Barros 3 at 33-33.  As Pitino filtered
the starters back in, though, the Nets began to reforge their lead.
Walker continued to pour in baskets against the unfortunate Van Horne
(who was nearly as effective as the Dolphins defense this afternoon),
but the rest of the team was lackluster.  The Celts fell behind by 7
(44-37) with about 3 minutes to go in the quarter.  The Celts got some
offensive production from Pierce and Potapenko as they went on an 8-3
run to cut the lead to 47-45 at the half.

	Much to my amazement, Anderson started the second half.  The
C's got off to a nice start, and actually took the lead on a Walker
fast break basket at 51-49.  Anderson had to leave the game with his
4th foul (most of them caused when Nets just broke him down on the
dribble), and Overton came in again.  The Celts managed to keep the
nests in reach, even taking the lead on occasion.  Walker continued to
score and Tony Battie had a couple of nice scores at the end of the
quarter to tie the game at 70-70 heading into the 4th.

	The Celts got their first lead of the game with breathing room
when Fortson hit a pair of free throws early in the quarter (74-70).
The Nets came back and in an ominous moment, took the lead on a
Marbury drive.  Stephon had been lying in the weeds for most of the
game, but would test the Celtics defense down the stretch.  With 7:00
to go the game was tied at 80-80.  The Celts pushed out to an 87-83
lead again, but Kittles and Van Horne scored (V.H. faked Pierce a mile
into the air and then drove around him for a nice ham) to tie it up
again with 3:55 to go.  On the next play Pierce took a horrible shot
against about 12 Net defenders (I saw a couple of cheerleaders trying
to strip the ball from him). The Celts got the ball back, and Kenny
(back in the game again, somehow) drove the lane, and then hit Toine
with an immense bounce pass for an easy score.  On the next play,
Pierce picked off the ball heading for Van Horne and steamed in for an
easy jam. The Celts were up 92-87 with 3:24 to go.  The C's blew their
chance to take control of the game, when Vitaly missed an 18 foot
jumper, then had Kittles block his jam attempt.  On the next play
Toine made on of his few poor plays of the game, as he was called for
stepping on the out of bounds line trying to elude a double team (the
replay looked very close).  Meanwhile, Marbury kept plugging away on
the offensive end for the Nets, and they were again able to tie the
score with 1:00 (or so) to go at 94-94.  On the next play Walker
scored down low, was fouled by Feick, but failed to covert the throw.
Marbury tied the game again on the next play.  Then Walker failed to
score driving to the basket and the Nets had a chance to take the lead
with 41.8 to go.  Marbury was trying to drive to the basket again, but
the Celts forced a turnover.  Kenny drove to the hoop, but missed the
score.  Toine tipped the ball gently back through the basket to give
the C's the lead for good.  A couple of seconds later, with Anderson
denied Marbury the inbounds pass, Walker anticipated the pass to Van
Horne, and picked it off, going in uncontested for a jam to five the
Celts  a 4 points lead with 17 seconds to go.  Marbury tried one more
mad charge to the basket but failed to convert, and the Celts had a
huge win (by their recent standards) 99-96.

	The Nets shot 58% in the 1st quarter, and after that must have
shot about 32% for the last 3, as they ended the game at 38%.
Meanwhile the C's, who started off the game shooting poorly (like they
have in the last 4 games they played, in other words), had lifted
theirs to 48% by game's end.  That and edge of 5 in turnovers, covered
for a massive deficiency at the free throw line, as the Nets went to
the line 45 times to the Celts 21.  The C's had an impressive 25
assists on their 41 baskets.

	
Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Cheaney, Walker, Potapenko
Nets: Marbury, Kittles, Gill, Van Horne, Cage(?)

Players:
Toine: This was definitely not the most elegant game Walker ever
played.  He was 0-5 on threes, and missed passing the ball to open
teammates on several occasions.  Once he missed passing the ball to an
open Cheaney, pounded the ball into the paint against 3 Nets, lost the
ball, picked it up against, scored and got the foul call.  Pretty much
played the whole game in that fashion.  For what ever reason, Walker
is just convinced that the Nets can't defend him (and he's right about
that of course).  He scored 39 points on 17-29 shooting, and had 11
boards in 45 minutes.  He was a monster down the stretch putting up 14
points in the 4th quarter including the last 7 of the game for the
Celts.  I know I say this every time we play Jersey, but if Toine
would go into every game with this kind of determination and
confidence, he could have this kind of impact in almost every game the
Celts play (and he is more and more).

Anderson: Obviously this won't be one of the standout game of Kenny's
career, with just 6 points, 5 assists and 2 steals in 18 minutes.  He
was in constant foul trouble through tout the game (he had 5), and was
limping very noticeably.  To be honest, I was going to criticize
Pitino for playing him at all (I'm not sure it still isn't justified,
we'll see if he can go on Monday).  But you have to give Kenny his due
for playing at all tonight, and for continuing to play and contribute
when he was obviously hurt.

Pierce: Another poor game.  Gill beat him a few times early in the
game, but then Paul put the clamps on him.  On offense though, Pierce
was atrocious.  He shot 5-14, though he did get to the line 7 times
(he's getting a lot of those foul calls because the Nets were giving
him too much respect: if they just let him shoot the ball, his stats
would have been even worse).  He's forgotten all about passing the
ball  (he had just 1 assist).  He does continue to play hard, though
as he had 6 boards and 4 steals in 36 minutes.  In the first quarter
he picked off a New Jersey pass, then lollygagged (?) his way down the
court, only to have Gill catch him from behind, and block his shot.
Pretty much symptomatic of his recent play.  By the way, you cannot
believe how critical Tommy is of Paul:  I swear Heinsohn gave Todd Day
more respect than this!

Potapenko: The Celts seemed to be trying to get the ball to Vitaly
more, but I think not in the right place.  Instead of getting him
those nice 12 foot jumpers, they're feeding him in the post, where
vitaly is not nearly as consistent.  V. did score 11 (5-13) and he had
11 boards in 32 minutes.

Cheaney: Mini-Adrian tonight as he had 4 points, 6 boards and 4
assists in 42 minutes.  Early on had serious trouble with Kittles, but
seemed to get the hang of defending him as the game went on.

Overton and Barros: combined for 11 points and 10 assists in 39
minutes.  Actually Overton played most of Kenny's missing minutes at
the point, while Barros got the majority of his at 2 guard.  Dana hit
some nice shots and even played some D.  Overton was effective for
about the first 3 minutes he was in the game.  Some what less so after
that.

Battie: 6 points, 3 boards, an assists, 2 steals, 2 turnovers and 6
fouls in 9 minutes.  The guy's working out there.

Fortson: I was really getting hot about this as the game was going on.
Fortson got just 7 minutes, and I'm not sure he would have played at
all if not for Battie's foul trouble!  He scored 4 and had 2 boards in
that time, and his activity on the boards probably got Walker 2 more
baskets (it takes a whole team to block Danny out: if any other Celtic
also goes to the board on the same play they should always get the
offensive board - if Danny doesn't).  After I thought about it I could
see that there were some match up problems that made it tough to play
him.  You really don't want Walker guarding Gill, and both Vitaly and
Tony were playing pretty well, so where could Danny get minutes from.

STILL...

McCarty: Still Rick found 10 minutes for Walter, who scored 3 and had
2 assists.

Coaching:  There were some signs of actual coaching in this game, like
Rick has finally realized there are some problems, and is trying to
correct them.  Of course the major thing that went right was Toine.
If Walker just has a good game, the Celts would have lost this one.
But the Celts did show some good ball movement tonight, and they were
trying to get the ball down court quickly.  They got a few outright
breaks, and quite a few early offense opportunities especially for
Walker.  After the first quarter, the Celts kept pretty good pressure
on the Nets outside shooters, and while they tried to deny Marbury the
ball, they didn't trap him too much, leaving other players open on the
perimeter (the Nets don't have any low post guys so that wasn't a
factor).

The C's are now 16-20.  They play on Monday afternoon (1:00) in
Washington (Maryland).

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net 

P.S.  I'm working this Monday (the Martin Luther King holiday, here in
the U.S.).  I'll tape the game, but won't get to watch it till late.
If someone would like to post a more timely report, please feel free.