C's Put in Their Place: Los Angeles 118-Boston 103

[wfcooper@tiac.com (Bill Cooper)]

	Any illusions we may have harbored that the Celts are ready so
soon to step up and compete against the iron of the league were put to
rest this evening.  The Celts were competitive for the first half,
leading by as many as 10 points, and holding a 1 points lead at the
end of the half.  Even then, though, I thought that the Celts had
thoroughly outplayed a very lethargic Lakers squad and still were only
leading by 1.  The Lakers woke up in the 3rd quarter and totally
shredded the Celtics press, outscoring the Celts 39-24.

	Both teams started off extremely slowly.  4 minutes into the
game the scored was tied at 4 apiece.  Pitino went to the bench even
earlier than usual, trying to get some life into the Celtics with
Edney and Ellison.  But the Lakers got their game into gear (maybe 2nd
gear) first and took a small lead at 17-14.  Dee Brown and Dana Barros
played very effectively , leading the C's on a 9-4 run to take a 23-21
lead.  The first quarter was played at the highest tempo of any C's
quarter this year with 57 possession between the 2 teams.

	Behind continued high energy play from Dee, the C's outscored
the Lakers 15-7 on their way to a 38-28 lead.  The Lakers began to get
into the game, though and chipped away at the Celtics lead throughout
the remainder of the quarter.    On the next to last possession, Nick
Van Exel hit a three to give the Lakers their only lead of the 2nd
quarter 52-49.  Chauncey Billups grabbed the ball, dribbled 3/4s of
the length of the court and responded with a three of his own to give
the C's a 53-52 lead heading to the locker room.  As I said above,
thought, the Celtics had easily outplayed the Lakers and still only
led by 1 point.

	The Lakers woke up at the start of the 3rd.  They aggressively
attacked the press with crisp passes and athletic finishing.  They
outscored the C's 14-6 to take a 66-59 lead.  Pitino made some
substitutions and managed to get the C's offense going a little, but
the Lakers continued to score easily.  With the score at 76-71, the
Celts were called for an Illegal Defense.  The Lakers hit the free
throw, and then Van Exel dropped a three, as the Lakers scored 4
points on the possession, and started a 15-6 run (all the Celtics
points came on 2 Antoine Walker treys).  The Lakers led at the of the
3rd 91-77.

	Much to their credit, the Celtics made an effort to get back
into the game at the start of the 4th.  They pulled to within 11
points at 99-88, even though Walker (who played quite well otherwise),
just blew opportunities to score 6 points that could have made the
game close.  The Lakers began to pull away again, as the C's defensive
intensity began to sag a little.  The Lakers pushed their lead up to
118-100 before Dana Barros hit a meaningless three at the buzzer to
make the score 118-103.

	The Lakers success at breaking the C's press was reflected in
their .597 shooting percentage (C's .465).  The Lakers also got to the
free throw line more often than the Celts (37-28), though neither team
was especially effective form there.  Each team shot an identical 7-15
from the 3 points line.  The Celts did have a nice advantage on the
offensive boards 14-7, but they wasted much of their effort in causing
23 Lakers turnovers (most in the first half), by committing 19 of
their own.

Lineups:
Celtics: Billups, Mercer, McCarty, Walker, Knight
Lakers: Van Exel, Jones, Fox, Horry, Campbell

Players: =20
Walker: Toine had a big game, stat-wise with 28 points (9-19), 12
boards, 7 assists, 5 steals and 7 turnovers.  The Celts tried to go to
Walker when their offense was slow, and Walker certainly tried to
shoulder the load.  But he committed a lot of those turnovers trying
to do too much.  He also threw the ball away several times, trying to
pass out of low post double teams.  Pitino spotted Antoine for a few
minutes at center against Campbell, and Walker used his quickness well
against Eldon.

Billups: Just had a ghastly game.  Scored 3 points (that trey at the
end of the half), and committed 4 turnovers in 21 minutes.  And he
looked a lot worse than those stats show.  Several times he drove down
the lane, and just lamely fumbled the ball out of bounds because he
couldn't figure out what to do with it.  Looked like preseason again.


Mercer: Another solid game for Ron, as his jump shot was falling and
he did a good job on the break.  Scored 18 points on 8-15 shooting.
He did a good job on Jones in the first half, but Eddie really heated
up in the second half from the outside.

Knight: Also had a solid game against his former mates, with 18
points, 9 boards and a block in 26 minutes.  He got 5 personals (per
usual) which limited his playing time.  You definitely had the feeling
from watching the way Eldon Campbell took the ball to the basket
against Travis, that he didn't gain much respect for Knight's
individual defense in last years practices.

McCarty: Walter is out of phase again, as he can't seem to hit
anything.  Shot 1-6 tonight, had 5 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals in
31 minutes.  Walter needs to work on ways to score when his shot isn't
falling, like going to the offensive boards.  Can anyone think of any
reason Walter shouldn't be a fine offensive rebounder?

Edney: played well tonight.  He scored 7 points, and had 4 assists in
just 12 minutes.  But he kept picking up tacky little fouls, that cut
into his playing time.

Pervis: It looked to me as though Pervis was playing about the same
way that he has for the last couple of weeks, but Rick must have seen
something he didn't like as Ellison only got 10 minutes, despite a
relatively low 2 fouls.

Brown: In the first half the energy level of Dee's play was
incredible.  Early in the 2nd quarter, over about 2 minutes of playing
time Dee  had 2 steals, and three and fed Walker for a layup.  You
could feel the energy.  Of course, as frequently turns out to be the
case when Dee plays this way, the efficiency of his efforts fell.  Dee
scored 7 points on 3-9 shooting, had 4 assists, 4 steals and 0
turnovers in 31 minutes.

Barros: he got some extra playing time tonight, with Billups
ineffective play and Edney's foul trouble and responded with a great
shooting effort, as he hit 7-8 shots (3-3 on threes) and put up 17
points in 19 minutes.

Minor: Only got 10 minutes, not sure why.

DeClercq: Again, like Pervis, only got in the game for 7 minutes even
though he didn't have any foul trouble to speak of.  I guess Pitino
didn't think that Pervis and DeClercq matched up well against the
smaller Laker reserves.

Thomas: DNP

Coaching:  For the second game in a row, the Celtics press was vastly
more effective in the first half than in the second.  I don't think
that I've said much about Pitino's substitution pattern, but he does
something kind of funny with McCarty and Walker.  He substitutes very
freely at all the other position, but in the first quarter, he
generally plays McCarty for about the first 8 minutes, and then
substitutes Minor for Walter.  After about 2 minutes, he brings
McCarty back into the game for Walker,  And then about 1 minutes later
he pulls Minor back out and puts Walker back in.  Walker frequently
gets only 2 or 3 minutes off in the first half (and never around the
quarter break).
	What I'm trying to bring out (in a long winded way) is that
Walker is playing a lot of minutes for some one who is expected to be
a major participant in a full court press.  Walker played 39 minutes
last night (and Pitino sat him down with about 3 minutes to go and the
game out of reach).  I think that all of Walker's steals came in the
first half.  In general, the C's press was much less effective in the
second half.  The Lakers generally broke through the first line of the
press, and the Celtics just couldn't get dash back quickly enough to
interfere with the Lakers finishers.   Certainly that was partly to do
with crisp execution on the part of the Lakers, but I also think that
the Celtics were slower than usual on the tactical retreat.

The C's record is now 7-7.  They host the Suns this Friday night.

Bill Cooper
wfcooper@tiac.com    =09