Last night

["hironaka@xxxxxxxxx"<hironaka@xxxxxxxxx>]

The Celtics missed an opportunity to climb back to .600 
(and 9-games over .500 for the first time since before 
Christmas). They will need a Friday win to finish their 
third straight month with a winning record (they are 
currently 7-7, after a 1-5 start).

But I think Antoine Walker has to proceed with caution, 
given that Friday and Saturday are a back-to-back with 
travel in between. 

Boston did a good job of boxing out, but then they fail 
to get the missed Ben Wallace FT with 15 seconds left and 
a 1-point deficit.

Although I don't recall all of Ben Wallace's 7 blocked 
shots, I did see two called fouls that were clean blocks 
on the replay.

Boston has four more games before the All Star break, but 
it will be very tough to get to 30 wins by then.

Although the game last night was close because of the 
Detroit FT choke-fest, the Celtics have a lot of mistakes 
to address before Friday.

Just 14 assists (6 by Pierce), 16 turnovers and .389 
shooting isn't going to cut it. Boston only forced 10 
turnovers on five steals.

Assuming the Celtics don't outrebound Detroit by 17 again 
on Friday, they'll have to do a lot better job in other 
areas.

Boston got 1 point in 39 minutes out of Grant Long and 
Vin Baker, so Antoine Walker's eventual return is bound 
to provide a boost. 

Ditto for Tony Delk, in light of Shammond's zero shot 
attempts in 16 minutes. It scared the heck out of me, 
seeing Obie put Shammond on Rip Hamilton during crunch 
time.

But all I care about is their health during a 7-game 
series, not right now.

BTW I think the only reason Shammond is playing is to 
potentially shop him. Some scout had to be there 
watching. It makes no sense otherwise. Bear in mind he 
was out there with Bremer part of the time, when SG is 
not a position where we are shorthanded.

I barely trust Shammond to bring the ball past midcourt, 
much less get Boston's offense running. Somewhere along 
the line, his confidence in his dribble completely 
deserted him. 

Joe H.

p.s. Regarding last night's FoxNE scoreboard, I remember 
past games this year where the Fox scorekeeper actually 
seemed slow in updating the score after baskets. Maybe it 
wasn't the FoxNE guy (I watch on league pass, so its all 
a blur), but I distinctly remember this in several games. 
Last night was truly weird. Maybe the satelite feed was 
delayed a split-second or something, since the score 
would update before the ball touched net.




  


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