C's go down Again: Miami 90-Boston 74

[ataghzout@imageconversion.com (Abdel Taghzout)]

Another woeful effort for the Celts, as their continued poor shooting
 and lack of offensive execution more than offset anything that they
could
 do defensively.  In the first half, Antoine Walker continued in his
shooting
slump, but did begin to show signs of coming out of it in the 2nd half. 
(Note:
I'm in Medford, Mass tonight, and had to listen to the game on the
radio: If
anyone would like to help me out by doing some color I would appreciate
it.).

	Once again the opening moments of the first quarter heralded better
things
for the C's.  They jumped out to a 6-2 lead off some nice play by Ron
Mercer, who  
promptly disapeared from sight, not to be seen again for the rest of the
game.
The Heat, despite a slow start by Tim Hardaway, got things in gear and
quickly 
built a 10-6 lead.  Despite Toine's negative contribution, the C's
battled back
and tied the game at 18-18, on a Bowen three.  But the Heat scored the
last 4 
points of the period to make the score 22-18.

	The second quarter was again the Celt's undoing.  The Heat outscored
the C's
12-3 to open the period and push out to a 34-21 lead.  The Celt's
fullcourt defense 
after missed baskets was breaking down as the Heat struck for layups and
jams off 
of long outlet passes.  The half ended with the C's in a deepp hole
again at 47-31.

	To their credit, the Celts came out and played hard to start the
third.  The
team made a concerted effort to revive Walker's offensive game and for a
while it
had some effect, as the C's scored the first 10 points to get within 6
at 47-41.  
That was as close as the C's could get as the Heat quickly regained
control of 
the game.  After Pitino took Antoine out of the game, the C's offense
went completley
sour, and the Heat led 68-56.

	The Celts offensive drought continued into the 4th period (They failed
to score 
over the first 5:00 of the quarter).  Fortunately the Heat weren't doing
much better
and after they scored for the first time on a Knight jumper the C's had
only seen the 
margin increse to 15 at 73-58.  At this point the Heat offense caught
hold (especially
Mashburn), and Miami pulled away, building an 85-61 lead.  The Celts
outscored
the Heat 13-5 over the last 3 minutes of the game to make the score a
misleadingly
close 90-74.

	Shooting, shooting, shooting.  The offense continues to perform
misearably.
The Celts shot .382 tonight, and launched 20 threy pointers (made 6). 
Since they were
overwhelmingly shooting jumpers, they only went to the free throw line
17 times.  They did 
do a better job on the boards, 41-38, but committed more turnovers than
the Heat 19-14.
They also continued to have a hard time defending the three as the Heat
shot 9-16 on threes.
The tempo of the games has slowed alarmningly from the preseason, and
the first game against 
the Bulls.  In the last 2 quarters, the Celts and the Heat combined for
40 and then 43 
possessions (by my admittedly unscientific measure).

Lineups:
Celts: Billups, Mercer, Walker, McCarty, Knight
Heat: Hardaway, Leonard, Brown, Mashburn, Austin

Players:
Walker: Continues his poor shooting.  was just 2-11 in the first half
and then
"rallied" to go 8-24 for the game.  Toine did work hard on the boards
and defensively
and came up with 13 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals, 4 blocks but also 6
turnovers.  I'd like
to know if folks out there thought that Toine was taking worse shots
that usual (he
was 0-4 on threes), or if their just not dropping.  I can only call it a
good sign 
that Antoine reacts to adversity by working harder on the other parts of
his game.

Knight: continues to be a nice presence on offense as he scored 16
points and had 10 boards
in 32 minutes.  Amazingly did not have a foul.

Mercer: Maxwell made the point too many times that in the last 2 games
Mercer 
has performed well early in the game, but has then dissapeared from the
C's offense
after the opening moments.  Ron scored 12, and had 5 boards in 33
minutes 
of playing time.  Very effective coming off screens.

Billups: Pitino has a real Hobson's choice as neither Billups or Barros
seems to be
to spark the offense.  Chaunce didn't score last night and had 1 assist
in 11 minutes.

Barros: got the start in the second half, but wasn't much of an
improvement, as he had
7 points and 3 assists in 30 minutes.  Finally over the last 6 minutes
of the game
Pitino just gaeve up and went without a point guard.

McCarty: his shooting continues to be poor. Unlike Walker, though, I'm
not sure that
McCarty's will improve, at least until his selection does.  7 points on
2-11 shooing
and 3 boards in 30 minutes.

Bowen- continues to play hard.  had 10 points and 4 assists in 30
minteus.

Jones/Thomas: did not play.

Brown/DeClercq/Ellison: might as well have not played. (Just being lazy
here).

Coaching: I think that Pitino's early lack of emphasis on offense is
costing him
dearly.  I know that defense is the heart of his system, but how do you
press if 
you never score?  Your offense at least has to be good enough to take
advantage of
the turnovers you get (not that the Celts got many last night).  The
lack of
defense against the 3 concerns me.  I'm sure at Kentucky, or even with
the Knicks, 
Rick was happy to get in a 3 point shooting contest.  I have a feeling
that this
group of Celtics won't be winning many of those.  Oh, well, things are
scheduled
to turn around soon.

The C's record is now 1-3.  They play again this Friday.

Bill Cooper

P.S. Forgive me spelling mistakes as I'm composing this without my usual
software.