"The words of the prophets are written on the subway wall..."

[JB <jimmetz@xxxxxxx>]

	Well we didn't hit the "pick six," like those Paul Newman/Robert
Redford waanabees, at the Breeders Cup, but we surely hit the trifecta
with our own predictions, going into last nights game.
	First and most obviously, if you read this space yesterday, you will
remember that I noted that  the Sixers were soft in the middle and even
though they got pretty fair efforts from todd MacCullough and Brian
Skinner, we out rebounded the "Ladies in Black," by 49-37 and inspired
quotes like this one from the Sixer's coach, larry Brown.:
	{"I'm begging," he said of his pleas to Snow, MacCulloch, Keith Van
Horn and the rest of the team. "You know I was begging every time-out.
I think I said it 8,000 times, that we settled for jump shots over and
over again."
	Or take a look at this  paraphrase by the Boston Herald's Gus Martins:
"Philadelphia coach Larry Brown bemoaned his team's bad shooting
percentage from the perimeter and a soft inside game that saw the
Celtics bully the Sixers' big guys out of position."}
	Philladelphia said they wanted to make this personal:
	{"It's personal," said Eric Snow, one of five current Sixers on last
season's squad.
	"It's always personal when a team puts you out of the playoffs," Snow
explained. "It was personal for them when we beat them eight straight.
That was personal for them. It's personal for us. They put us out of
the playoffs. It's got to be personal. I'm quite sure they expect it to
be personal."}
	Can anyone doubt that it was coach O'Brien who had tried to mobilize
his band of softies into an aggressive mode against the C's?
	From Jackie MacMullin of the Boston Globe:
	{"Consider the collage of indignities the Sixers suffered: the
Celtics' 
PA announcer giving information on playoff tickets for the next round, 
even though there was more than four minutes to play; Antoine Walker 
barking at Philly's coach, with an air of cockiness that permeated 
their bench; Paul Pierce enticing the crowd to cheer louder, and rub it 
in more, Boston celebrating as if it had won the whole darn 
championship when the buzzer finally sounded.
	''I don't like the way some of those guys acted last year,'' Brown
said 
last night, before tip-off. ..." ''Coach [Dean] Smith always says,
`Don't act like you've never done it 
before.' "}
	Well, so much for the bulletin board game. The real game was played on
the parquet, boys.
	Getting back to our: "Celtics' Stuff's" trifecta, I'm sure you will
all remember Lance predicting that Pierce will be bottled up. He went
so fart as to say he would score less than 20, under Phily's defensive
pressure. 	The last measure of our prognosticating prowess, has to go
back almost three years,  to the time I first remember P.J. offering
that with Walker playing  the power forward position, from the three
point line, we need a long, rebounding, shot blocking player, with
athleticism, to guard opposing threes at the other forward spot. He
even faced ridicule for suggesting that Walter McCarty might be the
perfect speciman, for the starting line-up. Lo and behold, last night,
who was on the floor at crunch time, giving us the pretty big line-up,
P.J. has always thirsted for, none other than, the former "Energizer
Bunny," who now may pick up a new nickname, more worthy of his
rebounding and defensive efforts.
	What impressed me the most about last nights game, even more than the
continued involvement of Vin Baker and the rebounding effort, was the
poise down the stretch. When Iverson made a few shots in the last few
minutes, to get the game to 5, the C's stayed calm, worked the ball for
good shots and made all of their free throws, to hold on to the lead.
The Celtics seemed like the veteran bunch this time out, unlike in past
years, when the Sixers came to town, with all of the swagger.
	One other note: It was also written here yesterday; that unless
Iverson passes the ball, we would win. Well Allen had exactly one
assist and left the arena marveling over our "team effort." Do you
think he gets it?



		JB

	Unchain My Heart !