Vecsey: Celtics Choke and O'Brien Showing Ainge Up

[wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

CELTICS' CHOKE ONE FOR BOOKS 
Peter Vecsey
New York Post

December 7, 2003 -- 

COUNTLESS fans at Friday night's traumatic meltdown by the Celtics are appealing today for counseling. So, you can imagine how the perpetrators feel after surrendering a 29-point second-half lead - and then some - to the spastic Suns. 

I haven't seen a collapse like that since the presidential campaign of John Kerry, who now trails Rick Pitino in the polls. 

Paul Pierce did not make himself available to the media. He vaporized from the premises soon after his team was vanquished, leaving Vin Baker to articulate: 

"I've never been part of a loss like this. This is a first for me," he said with a straight face; present company and recent lifestyle excluded, I presume. 

 At last glance, Boston's fairly well-paid professional players kneeled over, folded up along the dotted lines and evaporated under the onslaught of full-court pressure . . . seemingly the Suns' singular option considering the parched gulch they were entrenched, as well as Amare Stoudemire's serious second-quarter ankle sprain. 

Oddly, when Frankie Johnson went small, Jim O'Brien extracted a pullout from Don Chaney's coaching handbook (handcuff Dikembe Mutombo to his seat for the fourth quarter whenever the opposition plays five Lilliputians) and followed suit. In other words, the ending was so unhappy for New York twice against Milwaukee that O'Brien couldn't resist taking a bite out of the same tempting apple by benching 6-11 Raef LaFrentz for all but eight minutes. 

You remember LaFrentz, the principal slice in the swap with Dallas for Antoine Walker, one of the NBA's most versatile and prodigious performers? Danny Ainge's bright idea, with a significant assist from the VP's treasured head doctor! The guy Easy Mark Cuban grotesquely overpaid prior to last season ($69,973,750 over seven), a $61M tab picked up by the cost-conscious Celtics! 

Who knows, if you somehow, some way excuse the result, maybe O'Brien's decision to freeze LaFrentz was indeed the correct countermove to Johnson's swarming defense. Or maybe O'Brien was simply trying to save Jerry Colangelo from eating Wednesday's words of support regarding Johnson's job. 

One way or the other, Ainge can't help but feel embarrassed! Can't help but get the impression his coach might be trying to show him up! Can't help but feel like Ernie Grunfeld did when Jeff Van Gundy initially neglected Marcus Camby (interestingly, the Rockets have made numerous overtures for Cotton Camby since Van Gundy's arrival in Houston), an artful protest against the trading of Charles Oakley! 

OK, say LaFrentz is conspicuously ill-equipped to start for the 7-12 Celtics. At the same time, you'd think O'Brien, in order to spare Ainge a measure of public (and N.Y. Post) ridicule, could unearth some supplementary Sunlight for him to bathe. 

Boston's situation is what it is; O'Brien has another thing coming if he thinks Walker, Tony Delk and J.R. Bremer (and his 28 percent field-goal accuracy) are miraculously going to walk through his door.