With clincher there for taking, the rest was left up to them

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

With clincher there for taking, the rest was left up to them


By Peter May, Globe Staff, 5/1/2003

o Bucks!


That should be the Celtics' rallying cry tonight, provided, of course, that
they take care of their unfinished business at the FleetCenter and dispose of
the Indiana Pacers.


So, in the interests of helping out the new owners, who seem to need it,
here's what their covert operations staff can do while the boys in green are
finishing off the Pacers:

 Make sure there are a lot of room-service cheeseburgers awaiting the Nets
when they arrive tonight in Milwaukee.

 Book a function room at the Nets hotel and hire Larry Eustachy to be the
chaperone for the night.

 Make sure there are plenty of fire alarms set to go off through the night.

 Call Byron Scott with your best Rod Thorn mimic (Chris Wallace comes to mind;
he has that West Virginia twang) and insist he play Dikembe Mutombo. A lot.

 Make sure all the bars in Milwaukee close at 11 p.m. so Gary Payton can get a
good night's rest. Come to think of it, never mind on that last one. It
doesn't matter to Payton.

The Celtics lost something more than just a game Tuesday night. They lost an
opportunity. In the playoffs, you take the rest when you can get it, and this
year, with the series all best-of-sevens, the need for some downtime is more
acute than ever.

If the Celtics had won Tuesday, the rest of their week would have looked like
this: off yesterday, light work today, watch tonight's Bucks-Nets game, report
to practice tomorrow with perhaps a new opponent on the plate, or chill for
another couple of days and get ready for a spent opponent coming off a
seven-game series. Do you think Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker, Tony Battie, Eric
Williams, and the rest of the fellows could have dealt with that?

Rest at this time of the season can be a double-edged sword of sorts. How much
is too much? Here's what we do know: not having any is not having enough. The
Celtics had some downtime before last year's conference finals against New
Jersey and still looked weary at the end. The Pacers have to figure that if
they can somehow extend this thing to seven -- no small feat -- they would
have an edge because of their depth. (Forget about the home court. There were
thousands of empty seats at Conseco Fieldhouse and the public address
announcer had to prompt the fans to make noise and stand.)

It still may be too early in the postseason to worry about the Celtics getting
tired, but it's not too early to see what a win in Game 5 would have done for
them. They could have had almost a week of rest before the second round, which
now would start Monday, and they would have gotten an extra two days' rest
than their opponent. And if somehow this series stretches to seven games, the
Celtics would be playing every other day while going from Indiana to Boston to
Indiana to New Jersey or Boston.

All of this could have been avoided had someone on the Celtics managed a
single point in the final two minutes of regulation Tuesday. Or if the team
had managed to score 6 points in five minutes of overtime. That's not asking a
lot. It still boggles the mind to realize that the Celtics pitched a shutout
in OT, something no team had ever done before in NBA playoff history. If the
Celtics don't win tonight, it won't matter what happens in Milwaukee. But
there hasn't been much from Indiana to believe the series won't end tonight.
The Pacers prevailed in Game 5. They survived Game 5. They outlasted the
Celtics in Game 5 -- only because they were slightly less inept.

After the tractor pull Tuesday, the Celtics went to the airport and flew off
into the night, arriving home in the wee hours. (Or, as they say in Milwaukee,
Payton Time.) The Pacers went home, gathered yesterday for film watching and
talking to the press (surely the highlight of the day), and then flew to
Boston and checked into the Ritz. How taxing is that? That's a normal routine.
The Pacers may now be said to have the Fatigue Factor slightly in their favor,
given that beleaguered coach Isiah Thomas finally explored and utilized his
deep bench.

The Celtics missed their first chance to close out an opponent and capitalize
on the attendant benefits therein. Now they need some help to at least let
them catch their breath before the next series. They need to win tonight --
and they can't rely on the crowd for that. And they need Payton, Sam Cassell,
and the boys to extend their series to seven.

That's not too much to ask, is it? The home teams prevail in both cases? It's
simply too bad the Celtics got themselves into this predicament, because the
Pacers were ripe for plucking Tuesday. The Celtics still have the upper hand.
But it also wouldn't hurt to get the special-ops guys up and running in
Wisconsin. At this stage of the season, every little bit helps.

Thanks,

Steve
sb@maine.rr.com

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