C;'s Fall to Hornets: Charllotte 110- Boston 96

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	Obviously this report is pretty late, and I assume most folks
already have a pretty idea what transpired last evening, but I thought
I'd post anyway, since it was a pretty interesting game (in the sense
of a science experiment).  The bad news is that the experiment came
about because Pierce injured his left hamstring.  With that injury
piled on top of the absences of Griffin, Williams and Cheaney, Pitino
was forced to go to some interesting lineup combinations.

	The Celts got off to a quick start, going 13-9 to start the
game.  With about 6:00 to go, Pierce tried to save the ball going out
of bounds, and collided with a table.  He was limping as he came back
on the court, but stayed in the game.  Both clubs had a tough time
scoring over the next couple of minutes.  With the Hornets up 18-15,
Pierce tried to slash to the basket, collided with the Hornets D, and
came up limping worse that ever.  Pitino put McCarty in for Pierce.
The substitution didn't help the C's offense, as they continued to
have a very hard time putting the ball in the basket, despite pretty
good shot selection.  Meanwhile, everything the Hornets put up was
going in, and they ended the quarter leading 28-19.  The Hornets
assisted on all 10 of their baskets in the quarter.  Walker didn't
score a hoop in the first quarter.

	The Celts opened the second period, with a backcourt of Barros
and Overton.  Temporarily it seemed to help as Overton hit a couple of
jumpers, and the Celts cut the Hornets lead to 5.  The Hornets got
some nice play from Celtic Killer Brad Miller (I think that's his
legal name), and pushed the lead back up to 8 at 35-27.  Out of a
timeout Pierce gave it one more try, but was clearly limping around
the court.  After 3 possession Pitino had to substitute McCarty for
Paul:  In the meantime, the Hornets took advantage to build up a 46-30
lead.  Pitino went to a 3 guard lineup (Overton, Barros, Anderson) as
the Celts applied some pressure (just like the good old days with
M.L.).  They were successful in turning the Hornets (with Baron Davis
at the controls) over, cutting the lead to 50-39.  With Wesley back in
the game, the Hornets finished the half with an 8-4 run to take a
58-43 lead into halftime.

	The Hornets got the lead up to 16 (61-45) at the start of the
3rd.  Pitino now went big, moving Walker to the 3, and putting in
Battie at power forward (Potapenko at center).  The Celts got some
good results, especially getting some good work off the offensive
boards.  Initially Walker seemed inclined to stay out on the perimeter
and tried a couple of threes.  The Celts cut the Hornets lead to
70-58.  Fortson came in for Potapenko, but Pitino stuck with Toine at
the small forward spot.  Eventually, Walker realized that playing
against a small forward (even if it was Anthony Mason), he ought to go
inside even more, not float around on the perimeter.  Toine began to
do some damage inside (though Mason certainly did a respectable job
against him).  Meanwhile Vitaly did some real damage off the offensive
boards as the quarter ended with the Hornets maintaining that 83-71
lead.

	Things really got weird at the start of the 4th, as Pitino had
his 3 point guards out on the court, together with Fortson and
Potapenko.  The Celts threatened several times to cut the lead below
double digits, but were turned back each time.  With 6:03 to go, the
Hornets were up 93-79.  The Celts scores 6 straight to cut the lead to
9 at 93-85.  Derrick Coleman carried the Hornets home, mostly with
outside shooting.  A conventional 3 point play put the Hornets up
101-89, and the game was over for all intents and purposes.  With
about 2 minutes left, Mason and Fortson started jawing at each other.
They were called for a double foul, and then Mason was called for 2
technicals and ejected from the game.  Fortson made a gesture that
indicated that he had used the time to perform a psychiatric
evaluation of Anthony, and that his diagnosis was not all together
positive (if you haven't seen that episode yet, I'm sure you will).
Meanwhile, the game came to an end with the Hornets up 110-96.

	Tommy was (justly!) making a big deal about the free throw
differential (37-13).  The story of the game was the interior play of
the Hornets, as Coleman, Campbell and Miller combined to shoot 19-29
from the field (also 14-20 from the free throw line) for 56 points.
The Hornets shot .520 to the Celts .457.  The Celts did have a nice
advantage on the offensive boards (14-8) and edged the Hornets on the
boards overall 41-40.  The Hornets passed the ball extremely well, as
they had 31 assists on 39 baskets.  The Celts leading scorers in the
game were Potapenko (18), Fortson (16), and Barros (14)!

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

Players:
Pierce: not much to say about his play (only 11 minutes).  I do
question keeping him in the game when he was clearly hurt.

Walker: where was he.  I suppose if I were a Hornets fan I would be
lauding the job that Mason and Coleman did in defending him.  I'm not
sure I buy that, but Toine shot just 5-15 and had 6 boards and 4
assists i 39 minutes.  I thought he had a reasonable amount of success
going to the basket against Mason in the second part of the third
quarter, but the Celts (understandably) weren't organized enough to
keep mining that vein.

Anderson: Poor shooting night at 4-15 (if Toine and Kenny have decent
shooting nights the Celts would have been right in this one, despite
the injuries).  He did have 8 assists.

Vitaly: is in some kind of weird offensive rebounding zone.  V.P. had
7 O boards in 29 minutes of play.  He totaled 18 points (8-15), had 11
boards and 2 blocks.  The only fly in the ointment, was the poor D
against Eldon Campbell who was 7-9.  Very surprisingly he only picked
up 1 foul in the game, despite the board crashing.  Did a really nice
job of following drivers to the basket and picking up the garbage when
they missed.  If you combine Potapenko's nice mid range jumper with
the ability to follow a driver to the board, you've got a pretty
lethal combination.

Fortson: had a nice game in the low post against Miller and Coleman.
He scored 16 points on 7-11 shooting to go with 10 boards in 23
minutes.  There was a play in the third quarter, where it looked as
though someone had downloaded Kevin McHale's brain into Danny's body,
as he combined a drop step with an up and under move in a dead on
evocation of a McHale classic.  At one point Fortson made a defensive
mistake, and Pitino called a 20 second timeout to spend the whole time
lecturing Danny on the correct way to make the play.  I don't think
Fortson enjoyed the experience.

Barros: scored 14 tonight, although he missed any number of shots that
were makeable by his standards of past season.  He shot 5-12, 1-5 on
treys, most of which seemed very makeable.

Overton: displayed a decent mid range jumper together with a lack of
point guard skills.  He shot 4-8, and had 4 assists to go with 5
turnovers, most of which he garnered on clumsy forays into the paint.
You can see why he's hung around so long without finding a home
anywhere.

McCarty: 6 points, 5 fouls and 3 turnovers in 22 minutes.  In that
episode where Pitino was balling Fortson out, you could see Fortson
begin to turn around and leave the huddle.  McCarty reached out his
arm, and kept Fortson turned towards Pitino, like he though it would
just make things worse if Danny walked away. I wonder if Walter's
chief value to the team is serving as a buffer between the guys who
are unused to Pitino's ways and the coach.

Coaching: Like I said on top, it was an interesting game.  For all the
criticism that Pitino gets for his substitution, it seemed to me, that
when he forced to, he adapted to having to improvise lineups pretty
well.  He came up with interesting and productive combinations, and
you can make the argument that the Celtics played the Hornets pretty
evenly: they just didn't hit some makeable shots.

	I have mixed feeling about Pierce playing on Tuesday.  I
certainly would prefer a healthy Pierce to any other possibility, but
if he's not close to 100%, I's rather he not play at all.  Paul
doesn't seem to play real well coming of injuries (maybe because he
comes back to soon).  And this would give the team a chance to try out
some other combinations.

The Celts are now 19-21.  They play in Miami on Tuesday.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net