Celts Article...and around the NBA

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Pro Basketball Notebook
BY CHRIS BERNUCCA
SPORTSTICKER PRO BASKETBALL EDITOR

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY (TICKER) -- The Boston Celtics are the best team in
the Eastern Conference -- this week.

Any doubts that the East is wide open have been erased by the first six weeks
of the season, in which no less than five teams have been able to claim the
unofficial title of the conference's best team.

In a twist of irony, the constant shuffle at the top has come during a season
where the NBA has decided to split its Player of the Week award to winners in
each conference. The league could have been doing the same for teams in the
East.

In chronological order, the winners would have been the Milwaukee Bucks, New
Jersey Nets, Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors. This week's recipient
appears to be the Celtics, a two-player team riding a five-game winning
streak.

Four of those wins came on the road against Eastern foes, including Toronto
and New Jersey, victories that avenged earlier home losses to those clubs. The
Celtics are four games over .500 for the first time since the end of the
1992-93 season.

With no one running away from the pack, Boston has to feel good about its
postseason chances. However, it has not been to the playoffs since 1995, the
longest current drought of any team in the East.

"I was asked by (owner) Paul Gaston, when I sat down with him last year, `What
team/teams are we going to leap over in order to make the playoffs?' I don't
look at it that way," Celtics coach Jim O'Brien said at the start of the
season.

"Our team will be prepared every night out to win the game at hand," he added.
"If we can improve and our team is prepared and believes that they can win
every game out, then that's our best chance of being the team that the Boston
Celtics are supposed to be."

With their forward tandem of Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker, the Celts
certainly believe they can win every time out. Both players are in the top
seven in the NBA in scoring, combining for 52.2 points per game.

The Los Angeles Lakers have won the last two titles without the benefit of a
consistent third scorer, so there is no reason to believe that the Celtics
cannot have success relying primarily on Pierce and Walker to carry the load
on a nightly basis.

Both anticipated the work load and took steps during the offseason to prepare
themselves for the rigors of a five-month season. For Pierce, simply
participating in training camp was enough, having missed all of last year's
camp while recovering from stab wounds suffered in a near-fatal attack in a
nightclub. For Walker, it meant spending the offseason working out with a
legend in his hometown of Chicago.

"Last year, we started off without Paul, and even though he had a solid
season, he was never in the type of condition that he needed to be," O'Brien
said. "So right off the bat, we have a key player like Paul that's healthy and
that's very important to us."

"About mid-summer, about mid-July, I was able to do a lot of weight training
without any problem," Pierce said at the outset of the season. "That's
something that's going to benefit me, especially from last year because I felt
my body wore down from the amount of hits that I took going to the basket. I
think it will be a lot easier on my body this year because I was able to work
with the weights."

Pierce has played this season as if he is on a mission to prove he is an
All-Star and justify his $90 million contract extension. The team captain has
twice outplayed Michael Jordan and exploded for 48 points Saturday at New
Jersey. Overall, he is averaging 27.6 points, tops in the league.

"I'm hungry. This is a place where I want to be," Pierce said. "We've got to
be in the playoffs. There're no more excuses. I think we definitely have the
talent. I feel like if I'm playing here for the rest of my career, then I
should be in the playoffs and contending for a championship. That's how you
become great, as an individual and as a team."

Walker has the longest current tenure and the biggest cross to bear of any
current Celtic. An All-Star in just his second season, he has not returned to
that status, enduring the barbs of his former college coach Rick Pitino and
the boos of the Boston faithful.

"It's been hard, but every year brings a new challenge," Walker said. "This is
the best that I've felt individually about the team. I feel like we had a
little taste of success, even though we came up short of the playoffs last
season. We know how it feels to win and how it can be, and we kind of got a
little bit of the playoff bug and I think that was important."

Pitino is gone, having resigned midway through last season when it was clear
the team had tuned him out. The boobirds have disappeared as well as Walker is
having the best season of his six-year career. Not as lethal offensively as
Pierce but a more complete player, he is seventh in the league at 24.6 points
and adds 10.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists.

One of the complaints about the 6-9 Walker's game is that he is in love with
the 3-pointer. Last season, he led the NBA with 221, but also attempted a
league-high 602, shooting 37 percent from the arc. This season, he is on pace
to fire more than 700 3-pointers.

To shoot that much from long range over the course of a season demands superb
conditioning. Walker decided to do something about it as he spent the summer
as one of the NBA players who participated in Jordan's private workouts and
scrimmages in Chicago. He also hired a full-time trainer for the first time.

"This was the first summer that I really had a full-time trainer," he said.
"It was something that I can say that I really enjoyed and it's something that
I hope will pay off this season. I was finally able to get a trainer that was
qualified and that knew basketball and knew what it took."

"Antoine's worked extremely hard on his body," O'Brien said. "Antoine is a
stronger player that has conditioned himself to lead us. I can say the same
thing about Paul. They both have dedicated themselves conditioning-wise to
getting the job done."

Pierce and Walker probably give the Celtics enough to get into the playoffs.
How far they go depends on if and how quickly some of the team's shortcomings
are resolved.

"We don't want to just make the playoffs," Walker said. "We want to be one of
the elite teams in the league and we feel that we can do that in the Eastern
Conference. It's wide open."

The Celtics came out of camp convinced that rookie Joe Johnson could be their
third scorer. He has shown flashes of that ability but not on a consistent
basis. Fellow rookies Kedrick Brown and Joe Forte are at least a season away
from being contributors.

Boston also has no clear-cut No. 1 player at center or point guard, arguably
the two most important positions.

The pivot has been manned by Vitaly Potapenko, Tony Battie and Mark Blount.
Potapenko has a post game but moves slowly on defense and does not block
shots. Battie is an active defender but often gets into foul trouble and can
only face the basket. Blount is a jumping jack of a shot-blocker but commands
no defensive attention and scores garbage points. None of the three is a
prime-time rebounder.

"To become a playoff team, we've got to start dominating the glass and we got
to become a better defensive team," Walker said. "I'm not saying that we have
to be a great defensive team, but we have to be a better defensive team and
dominate the glass. That's been our weaknesses over the years, that we haven't
been able to control the glass and stop teams."

At the point, Kenny Anderson has been inconsistent and Milt Palacio has not
been much better. Erick Strickland has shown the ability to score and is the
best defender but makes poor decisions with the basketball.

Until those situations are rectified, the burden remains on Pierce and Walker
to restore Celtic Pride.

"I believe we do have enough to make the playoffs," Pierce said. "It's going
to be a little bit tougher. Teams have gotten better. I feel like we've gotten
better talent-wise, but talent is only going to take you so far. It's
developing as a team.

"We're gonna have to scrap. It's gonna be tough. It's a long road. We know
it's not going to be easy. There's about 10 teams I can see making the
playoffs. Hopefully, we can be in that top eight, but we're going to have to
fight and scrap to do it."

Right now, the Celtics are fighting and scrapping just fine. However, they
have been relatively healthy, while other teams in the East have endured
injuries. They also have faced only two teams from the West and do not make a
West Coast road trip until after Christmas, when they play four games in five
nights.

In other words, check again with us next week.

TRIVIA: Who holds the NBA record for blocked shots in a game? Answer below.

LINE OF THE WEEK: Paul Pierce, Boston at New Jersey, December 1: 49 minutes,
13-34 FGs, 17-18 FTs, 12 rebounds in a 105-98 overtime win. What Pierce did in
this game is virtually impossible. He was just 1-of-16 in the first half but
scored 46 points after halftime. You can count on one hand the number of
players who would be given that chance to straighten themselves out -- and do
it.

LINE OF THE WEAK: Ray Allen, Milwaukee vs. New York, December 5: 42 minutes,
4-20 FGS, 1-14 3-pointers, 1-3 FTs, 10 points in an 85-71 loss. Allen is the
reigning Long Distance Shootout champion but you couldn't tell from this game.
The 88 percent career foul shooter also missed a pair from the line.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Orlando Magic coach Doc Rivers, on when injured forward
Grant Hill could return:

"I really don't know. You're asking the wrong guy. Once again, let me remind
you about my nickname -- I only play a doctor only on TV."

GAME OF THE WEEK: Boston at New York, December 11. The Celtics are better and
the Knicks are worse, which begs the question, is the balance of power
shifting in the Atlantic Division? This one should be a good barometer. Boston
has lost 15 of its last 16 visits to New York. ...

The best game of the season almost became the worst, courtesy of Dee Kantner.

On Sunday, the Dallas Mavericks visited the Sacramento Kings, who were
unbeaten at home. Both teams know they are considered challengers to the Los
Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference and had something to prove to each
other.

The Mavericks got off to a quick start and opened a 23-point lead in the third
quarter. That was despite losing coach Don Nelson in the second period, when
Kantner ejected him for coming onto the court to argue a call.

There should have been no argument. Nelson was furious that forward Dirk
Nowitzki was clearly hacked across the arm by Lawrence Funderburke and no call
was made. The play was eight feet in front of Kantner, who had an unobstructed
view but made no call.

Nelson, who had a similar view, came storming onto the court as play went the
other way. Kantner had no problem seeing this and instantly tossed him.

An automatic technical? Without a doubt. Some semblance of order has to be
maintained. But it's also up to the official to keep a bit of perspective and
allow coaches their say. Kantner acted as if Nelson had no right to question
her call, which couldn't have been more wrong.

The Kings rallied, and the closing minutes of the fourth quarter went back and
forth. With the Mavs leading by one in the final seconds, the 7-foot Nowitzki
blocked a shot by 6-9 Peja Stojakovic. He made the play from the side with
minimal body contact for a last-second shot -- a clear "play on" situation
that everyone has seen thousands of times.

However, Kantner -- this time behind the play, with an obstructed view of the
contact point of both the hands and body -- whistled Nowitzki for a foul with
0.2 seconds left, putting Stojakovic -- an 88 percent foul shooter -- on the
line.

In a classic example of like father, like son, assistant Donn Nelson bolted
about eight feet onto the court in protest and had to be pulled back by
players and coaches. All of this occurred right in front of veteran official
Joey Crawford, who -- unlike Kantner -- has been around long enough to know
when to give a coach some leeway and said nothing.

"I'm an emotional coach, so you kind of get caught up in the game whether you
like the call or not," the younger Nelson said. "You've got to keep your
composure somewhat. I think I pushed the line to the limit on that one, but
I'm certainly happy I didn't get a `T.'"

Stojakovic took Kantner off the hook by missing one of the foul shots, sending
the game to overtime. Led by Nowitzki, the Mavs won, 120-114.

There is no doubt that Kantner is subjected to more scrutiny because she is a
woman. Unfortunately, her gender had nothing to do with this one. Her
performance had many of the signs of poor officiating, which include rabbit
ears, being overwhelmed by a raucous home crowd and not affording a beneficial
whistle to that game's most influential player, in this case Nowitzki, who
scored 32 points.

Kantner is not the only NBA official who falls victim to these traits. The
league is full of them. The majority of them are taken out of the rotation
once the playoffs begin, and only 11 of the 61 referees make the mix for the
NBA Finals. Since entering the league with Violet Palmer and three other new
officials for the 1997-98 season, Kantner has yet to work a playoff game.

However, these games are important, too. For Dallas, a road win over
Sacramento could mean the difference between facing the Lakers in the
conference finals as opposed to the conference semifinals. Dallas had to play
Game Five of last season's first-round series at Utah because it lost at home
to the Jazz during the season.

Bad officiating is a bit like pornography -- you know it when you see it. And
in a big game Sunday, it was in plain sight.

TWO MINUTES: Last Saturday, while NBC aired the Wizards, Turner -- which
televises games Tuesday through Thursday -- showed "The Wizard of Oz." With
Michael Jordan hobbling somewhat, how long before these networks decide to
drop a house on the Wizards? ... One of the game's most indispensible players
made his return Tuesday as Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas played for the first
time in nearly a year, scoring 11 points in 16 minutes of a win over Detroit.
Ilgauskas has had five operations to repair his broken feet, with the most
recent involving the re-alignment of the bones and the insertion of seven
screws in his left foot. "I hope this time the surgery is going to work and I
can stay around for a while," said Ilgauskas, not sounding very optimistic.
The 7-3 Lithuanian makes the Cavs competitive, although just about everyone is
keeping an ear to the ground for the next cracking sound. "We've been an
organization that's been waiting and hiding behind a foot, so we've got to
move on," coach John Lucas said. ... If you're wondering, here are Dikembe
Mutombo's victims when he blocked a record-tying eight shots in the third
quarter of Philadelphia's win Saturday over Chicago: Brad Miller, Trenton
Hassell, Miller again, Miller again, Eddy Curry, Ron Mercer, Mercer again and
Curry again. Miller was so frustrated he kicked a chair in disgust as he
exited the game, earning a $7,500 fine. ... In the second quarter of Tuesday's
loss at the Los Angeles Clippers, the Miami Heat used a lineup of Alonzo
Mourning, Chris Gatling, Jimmy Jackson, Rod Strickland and Sam Mack. That
might have been a playoff team five years ago, but it's not getting the Heat
anywhere now. ...

Trivia Answer: Elmore Smith had 17 for the Los Angeles Lakers against Portland
on October 28, 1973, about two weeks after blocks became an official
statistic. ... Lookalikes: Rafer Alston and Steve Francis. ... Happy 45th
Birthday, Larry Bird, one of this space's "Magnificent Seven" who legitimately
can stake a claim to being the best player to walk the face of the earth.