Carter Shoots Down Celts: Toronto 96-Boston 94

[Bill Cooper <wfcooper@tiac.net>]

	After playing rather poorly through the first half, the Celts
put together a pretty solid second half  to put themselves in position
to win the game.  After a pair of missed free throws though, Vince
Carter hit a turn around 3 pointer as the clock sounded to win the
game for Toronto.  Calbert Cheaney was back in uniform for tonight's
game.  In a surprise move, Danny Fortson got the start tonight at
power forward, with Walker at the 3.

	The Raptors and Carter got off to a quick start (for a few
minutes it looked like Vince might go for 50 again).  The Raptors
jumper out to a 10-4 lead.  Pitino called timeout, and the Celts
tightened up the defense.  Walker was matched up with McGrady, while
Pierce had the Carter duty early on.  The Celts tied up the game at 13
midway through the period.  The 2 clubs trade baskets for most of the
remainder of the quarter.  Carter scored on a drive to the hoop to
give the Raptors the lead 24-22 at the end of the period.

	The second quarter was a turnover-fest (the 2 teams combined
for 16 turnovers in the period).  The Raptors put together a 6-0 run
early midway through the period to take a 32-24 lead.  The Raptors
seemed a good bit quicker to the ball than the Celts, and took a 46-40
lead into the half.

	In another surprise move, Pitino started Fortson at the center
spot (in place of Vitaly) to start the second half.  Behind Walker the
Celts outscored Toronto 14-8 to start the second half, and tie the
game at 54.  The pace of the game slowed rather dramatically after
that and the Celts began to have a very hard time hitting free throws.
with the game tied at 65, McCarty got fouled in rebounding action at
the end of the period and hit a free throw to put the Celts ahead for
the first time in the game at 66-65.

	The Celts got off to a nice start in the 4th, as Walker pushed
the team out to a 74-67 lead with some nice passing.  The offense
slowed after that, and the Raptors came back to tie the game at 80
with 3:51 to go.  The Celts were trailing by 1 (86-85) with 1:45 to
go, when Kenny exploded for 7 points over the remaining portion of the
game.  Unfortunately the Celts couldn't stop the Raptors on the other
end, and were only ahead by 1 point (94-93) with 20 seconds to go.
Vitaly blocked an Oakley shot out of bounds, and then Carter missed a
4 foot turnaround with 3.5 to go.  Vitaly grabbed the rebound, and the
was fouled.  He missed both free throws. setting the game winning 3 by
Carter.  Vince got the ball on the right side of the court, and just
jumped over Griffin (who certainly played good enough defense to stop
99% of the players in the league).  The shot went in, and the Raptors
went home with the win, 96-94.

	The Celts had a real tough time at the free throw line.  They
shot just 18-31, while the Raptors went 22-27. the rest of the game
was pretty solid.  After a miserable start shooting the ball, the got
the field goal percentage up to .430, while the Raptors hit just .400.
they outrebounded the Raptors 51-45 and 21-15 on offensive boards.
Both teams were sloppy with the ball, with 17 turnovers apiece.

Lineups:
Celts: Anderson, Pierce, Walker, Fortson, Potapenko
Raptors: Christie, McGrady, Carter, Oakley, Davis

Players:
Walker: nice effort for Toine tonight, marred by 6 turnovers.  He shot
12-21, got 5 offensive boards, 4 assists and 3 steals in 43 minutes.
He made some pretty good decisions on offense, mixing up the mid range
jumpers, drives to the basket and offensive rebounds.  He really only
played the small forward spot for the first 9 minutes of the game, but
didn't seem to have any noticeable problem with McGrady.

Anderson: Kenny made some great plays down the stretch, as the Celts
put 11 points on the boards over the last 2:21 of the game
(unfortunately the Raptors put up 12).  Pitino apparently took part of
the blame for the bad loss Monday, by acknowledging that he played
Kenny too many minutes.  Tonight he kept Kenny to 33, and Anderson
responded with 20 points (8-17), 6 assists and 3 turnovers.  He had
Christie for much of the night on defense, and while Christie did post
him successfully a few times,  on the whole, Kenny got the best of the
matchup.

Pierce: Came close to matching Carter with 22 points on 9-17 shooting,
5 boards, 4 assists and 3 steals.   

Potapenko: a rare poor shooting night for Vitaly, as he shot 2-7 from
the floor and 2-8 from the line.  With about 50 seconds to go he got
fouled and hit both shots, but then missed the critical 2 with 3.5 to
go.  Other than that, actually played well with 11 boards in 27
minutes.

Fortson: somewhat misleading stat line, as Danny was obviously
throwing the ball up off the glass, and then going and getting the
rebound.  I think that all 4 of his offensive boards were off his own
missed shots.  And he wasn't all that successful at putting back the
ball,  which explains the 1-6 shooting.  I thought that Toine held up
his part of the bargain at the 3, but that Danny really didn't play
well enough in his place at power forward.

Griffin: the first time he touched the ball in the game, he passed up
a lay-up opportunity to pass the ball to a teammate 20 feet from the
basket.  I assume that Pitino got on him a bit, because he shot the
ball nearly every time he touched it for the rest of the first half.
Still not shooting the ball though, as he hit just 1-6.  Other than
that, he played pretty well, getting 6 boards and 5 steals in 31
minutes.  I thought his defense on Carter on the last shot was pretty
good, though Tommy found some fault with it.  It was just a great
shot.

Battie: I don't think he played in the second half.  Did have 5 boards
in just 10 minutes.

Overton: Tommy was commenting that he thought Doug played well.  He
did hit a couple jumpers in the early part of the 4th quarter, but
other than that, brought nothing to the table.  He shot 2-6, and had 1
assist in 15 minutes.

Cheaney: looked like he had been hurt for the last 2 weeks.  I don't
know how to judge this kind of absence, but should Calbert really be
rusty?

McCarty: hit a basket tonight and only took 2 tries to do it.

Coaching: I thought that if you were going to try Toine at the small
forward spot, that Toronto was an odd team to try it out against.  It
didn't seem to cause any defensive problems, as the Celts really
suffered by the lack of productivity by fortson and Potapenko.  And
Griffin and McCarty still got 45 minutes, and came up with 7 points.

The Celts are now 23-34.  they play the second half of the double
header in Toronto Friday night.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.net