Celtics put on poor exhibition

["Stephen Beauregard" <sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Celtics put on poor exhibition
By Mark Murphy/Celtics Notebook
Thursday, October 16, 2003

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - At least the baseball was good last night. Further
afield, The Palace hosted a game that boiled the concept of exhibition
basketball down to its ugliest denominator.

     The Celtics rifled through an entire punch list of deficiencies during
their 123-95 loss to the Pistons. From horrible defense, as illustrated not
only by the Pistons' .614 shooting percentage but also their second
triple-digit scoring performance in two weeks against the Celtics, to utter
sloppiness at the other end, there wasn't much for Jim O'Brien to glean from
the wreckage.

     Unless you're talking in terms of points to emphasize while running his
team ragged through a practice in New Jersey today, anyway.

     ``Oh, I'll have no problem working out a rotation,'' the Celtics coach
said of whether such a large-scale disaster impeded his ability to put his
players in a row. ``I'll put defense first. The people who play defense will
play.''

     It wasn't enough that Chauncey Billups, a full-time scorer at this stage
in his career, lit up the Celtics for 23 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Mehmet
Okur re-applied the heat with 14 second-half points that recast the backup
center as the Turkish Dave Cowens.

     ``I take the fact that we are a poor defensive team out of this,'' said
O'Brien, who lost Paul Pierce [news] (20 points) to foul trouble early, before
the Celtics captain fouled out midway through the third quarter. ``Whether
this was an exhibition game or not, we're flat out not playing at the
defensive level we will need to start the season.''

     The Celtics, now 0-4 with tomorrow night's game against the Nets in
Continental Airlines Arena on tap, could use a win as well.

     Indeed, this is where a relatively calm Antoine Walker [news] chose to
focus his attention.

     ``We have to win a couple of games,'' he said. ``That's the way you get
that attitude back.''

     Delk, Jones miss out

     Though he wasn't worried about Walter McCarty [news] (sore knee) missing
out on valuable court time last night, O'Brien was indeed concerned about the
immersion time being missed by Tony Delk and Jumaine Jones - the former with a
strained calf and the latter with sore hamstrings.

     ``Jumaine is working really hard out there to keep himself in shape, and
if not basketball condition, at least he will be in good general condition
when he returns,'' said O'Brien. ``He'll get acclimated, but it's a setback
not having Jumaine or Tony Delk out there right now.

     ``Tony is also one of our point guards, and he hasn't got any touches at
that position yet,'' he said. ``Walt has been around so long that he knows
what we want, so that's not a problem, but for these other two that's not the
case.''

     More time for Brown

     On the bright side, Kedrick Brown [news], who had 11 points and four
rebounds, was in line to receive even more time at shooting guard last night.

     ``And he's not just being given that time,'' O'Brien said. ``He's playing
with a lot of confidence, and he's playing well in every phase of the game.

     ``He's playing great defense, he's pushing the tempo, and he's rebounding
the ball,'' he said.

     Campus booster

     Though Mateen Cleaves barely registered on the Celtics radar prior to his
release on Tuesday, reverberations were clearly felt back up at Michigan State
- still the scene of the NCAA champion point guard's greatest accomplishments
in basketball.

     ``I still think he'll get picked up by another NBA team, but if he
doesn't, then I think he'll go to play in Europe,'' Spartans coach Tom Izzo
said during MSU media day on Tuesday. ``Mateen hasn't really played for two
years, and he's been set back by injury, so he's rusty.''

     Even at that, Izzo could see the writing on the Celtics wall as well as
everyone else when Cleaves checked in for his chance on a team that already
had three point guards (Marcus Banks [news], Mike James [news], Delk) under
contract.

     ``He didn't get much of a chance to play in Boston because they had so
many guaranteed contracts, and I think that was the biggest problem,'' said
Izzo. ``I still think he can play in the NBA, but he just has to get a break
to play for the right team.''
Thanks,

Steve
sb@xxxxxxxxxxxx