Boston Burned By Bad Habits, Phoenix -- Suns 110, Boston 106

[Dan Parker <danp@town.ipswich.ma.us>]

High off back to back road wins, the Boston Celtics motored into
Phoenix last night to face the Suns.  Unfortunately they reverted to
some bad habits and just fell short, losing to the Suns 110-106.

The C's started the game with Anderson and Cheaney in the backcourt,
and Pierce, Walker, and Potapenko up front.

The game got off to a good start for both teams, as they each were
hitting their shots early.  Antoine started off down low and quickly
hit two buckets.  Shawn Marion kept pace though, hitting his first
three shots.  Vitale was hitting the boards early and running the
floor, with Walker finding him on the break with a beautiful pass for
a dunk.  Shortly thereafter Walker took it to the basket himself on
the fast break and got stripped.  It was a sign of things to come.
Cheaney, who had been keeping Hardaway under wraps, picked up two
early fouls and Williams came in to replace him.  Eric found Pierce
for an alley-oop, Walker hit a jumper and the Celtics raced out to a
16-8 lead as the Suns started missing their shots.  The Suns did
control the boards though, getting many offensive rebounds to help
make up for their poor shooting.

Some nifty passing by Jason Kidd got the Suns back in the swing and
the C's saw their lead cut to 18-17.  Fortson came in and made an
immediate impact, mostly good, some bad.  He got called for a 3 second
violation but took over on the boards, generating second shots for the
C's and preventing the Suns from having their way on the other end.
Fortson had two putbacks and a steal in a very short stretch.  Phoenix
got a big break at the end of the quarter when it looked like time
expired, but the refs put .4 seconds back on the clock and the Suns
scored on the inbounds play.  The quarter ended with the Celtics
leading 30-28.

In the second quarter there were no starters in the game and the bench
started to look a little shaky.  The Suns scored four points before
Rick decided it wasn't such a hot idea and he put four starters back
in.  It didn't help, as V picked up an offensive foul and the C's
looked out of sync.  The crisp passing disappeared and more than once
the C's missed a rebound they could have gotten by mistiming their
jumps.  The C's were pressing after made baskets but Phoenix handled
it without too much difficulty.  The Suns pushed the lead up to 42-34.
Nothing was going right for the C's, but they gamely fought back,
scoring 5 straight and keeping it close.  Phoenix regained control of
the boards with Danny out, but then Walker made sure it didn't last
long, as he focused on rebounding and kept things under control.  The
Celtics seemed to think they needed to make up the Suns lead all at
once and were shooting way too many three pointers.  The C's escaped
the quarter down 62-52 and were lucky to be that close.

The start of the third didn't look so good when Kenny had a rare
unforced turnover, dribbling the ball off his leg and out of bounds.
Antoine started going to the basket and had some success in drawing
fouls.  Vitale wasn't hitting from the outside but he was solid on the
boards.  Kenny was looking bad, Pierce was terrible on defense,
repeatedly getting burned, and Pitino subbed out Cheaney (far and away
the best defender) for no apparant reason.  Fortson came back in and
immediately took control of the boards again and got a nice putback to
cut the lead to 74-67.  Kenny woke up from his coma and his a three
and fed Antoine with a nice pass off the break for a layup (when Kenny
chooses to pass, he has developed a good eye for finding 'Toine on the
break).  Williams and Pierce both clanked threes and Walker's drives
to the basket started coming up empty.  Somehow the C's kept at it
though, and off a Pierce drive the lead was cut to 79-77, shortly
after two Battie free throws made it 82-81.  There was a steal in the
final seconds of the quarter but Antoine elected to take it himself on
a three on two break and missed.  The quarter ended with the C's down
1, 84-83.

The fourth quarter started with Antoine airballing a three, but he
followed that with 1-2 free throws and the C's actually tied the game
at 84-84.  The lead was short lived as Cliff Robinson hit a three for
the Suns and then Shawn Marion hit a jumper to push the lead to five.
Boston started the quarter 1-8 and the Suns took control of the game,
pushing the lead to 97-88 with 6:45 left.  Boston got sleepy on the
defensive end as the Suns scored off a made free throw.  A Hardaway
jumper pushed the lead to 101-90.

But the C's weren't done quite yet as Cheaney calmly swished a jumper.
A Jason Kidd bucket was sandwiched around two missed three pointers by
Antoine and Paul.  With 3:12 left in the quarter the C's displayed
some beautiful ball movement as they zipped the ball around on the
perimeter searching for a good shot.  Kenny wound up getting a layup
and it was a sign of "what might have been" had they only played that
unselfishly for even half the game.  Anderson scored off his own
missed bucket, then followed that with a steal which led to a Walker
hoop and the C's were within 6.  Kenny went a bit wonky at the end,
ignoring Pierce and Walker (the obvious "go to" guys in the crunch)
and instead getting the ball to Fortson.  You couldn't argue with the
results though, as Danny hit one hoop and two free throws to make it
107-102 with 23.2 seconds to go.  It was too little too late as Cliff
Robinson hit enough free throws to keep it out of reach, and the final
score was 110-106.

Players
-------

Walker: The Anti-Toine returns!  Games like this make you think it
might not be Pitino's fault after all.  Walker has a stretch of
terrific games were he is universally praised (even by Peter May!),
particularly for his *passing*, and then he comes up with this
clunker.  0-3 on three pointers (Bill, you were right to be worried),
9-21 from the field, and three assists, two of which were probably
accidents.

Pierce: Eight three pointers?  The C's really need Paul to bring more
to the table than, say, Steve Kerr.  His defense was sorely lacking.
It's inexplicable to me why Paul isn't a superior defender, regardless
of whether he plays small forward or shooting guard.  He's got young
legs, long arms but is either clueless or has no work ethic on the
defensive end.  Hit some tough shots though, but was mostly along for
the ride.

Potapenko: Only 12 minutes, probably because Fortson was so solid, but
also a bit of a mystery as the C's were getting killed on the boards
whenever Pots (seven rebounds in his limited time) or Fortson wasn't
in there.  Rushed his jumper, as he never looked set when he took it,
and as a result clanked three of them.

Anderson: Kenny's selfishness is barely tolerable when he's hitting
his shot, but when he's in a shooting slump it's awful.  Tried to
shoot out of his slump.  Didn't work.  Has the knack for making his
teammates worse than they are, by dribbling around and taking it the
basket himself while everyone else just stands around.  A real
mystery, as he threw two or three gorgeous passing, but apparently met
a quota or something because the rest of the time he was wretched.  He
actually made you wish Rick would put Dana in the game.

Cheaney: The C's best defender was limited to 20 minutes due to "foul
trouble" Pitino style.  Kept Hardaway under wraps while he was in.

Williams: 0-6 from the field, but 8-8 from the line.  Eric really
thrives when the Celtics are playing unselfishly, so it's no surprise
he didn't do as well this game.

Fortson: 16 points and 15 rebounds in 22 minutes?  Pitino could really
stand to send a message to some of his starters when they play
selfishly, especially when Danny is having a night like this.  Pierce
and Walker both got 40+ minutes, Anderson got 38 at half-speed.
Completely controlled the boards when he was in, although his rebound
number is a little padded as he played patty-cake on the boards once
or twice.

Battie: 17 minutes, not much to show for it.  Really suffered from the
lack of ball movement.  I thought he would be able to hustle down the
floor against Oliver "The REALLY big O" Miller, but it wouldn't have
mattered since no one would have passed to him.

Barros: Looked sharp in the 11 minutes he played.  Has really come on
lately.  Should have gotten at least half of Kenny's minutes.

Ellison:  Didn't do anything to embarrass himself.

Overton:  1 minute, didn't screw up.  What more can you ask for?

Okay, I'm rather sour in this summary, but the C's had a beautiful
chance to win this game and they lost *not* because Phoenix was a
better team, but because they reverted to bad habits and stopped
looking for each other.  I don't know how it can be spelled out more
simply to Walker.  When he passes the ball he's spectacular, when he
doesn't he drags the whole team down.  The C's as a team had 13
assists on 36 baskets.  Yuck.

Pitino didn't help the cause with what I thought were some
questionable coaching decisions.  Pressing Phoenix seems to be a waste
of time, although the press didn't produce a turnover and a basket
early.  Phoenix didn't really blink after that.  Defense was a big
problem, particularly with whoever Pierce was guarding, yet Cheaney
only got 20 minutes.  There was also the start of the second quarter
which saw no starters in the game, which is when the C's started to
lose their momentum.  Rather than weave the starters back in gradually
(I think the bench has been playing well, they might have just needed
a few trips up and down the floor to get warmed up) he put four in all
at once and the C's just lost control.

The Celtics are now 30-37.  They play Minnesota next in Boston on
Wednesday.

Dan