Posted by Knight:

I'm really anxious to see what Larry has to say about this game and who gets minutes Friday.

On a Celtics night, visitors ones who are too green





BOSTON - This was the first long night. There will be a lot of long nights like this, even when they're exciting. There will be nights when the Knicks, despite all the new size they have, despite all they did to get Eddy Curry, will lose on the boards all game long. There will be nights when they turn the ball over at the worst possible moments. And maybe there will even be nights like last night in Boston, at the TD Banknorth Garden, when the Knicks shoot free throws as if trying to get balloons to behave, when they will only make 18 out of 33 and they will lose them a game they had a chance to win. You shoot free throws like that, you lose, no matter who your coach is.
Now it was time for the coach to talk about it.

First, all of Larry Brown's assistants came out of the Knicks locker room, one after another, enough to scrimmage if Brown is ever short players, especially since he's got Herb Williams and Mark Aguirre on his bench. They came out with their long faces, long-night faces, and stat sheets in their hands. Finally Brown came out. He took a look at the crowd waiting for him down the hall, all the cameras and reporters, and shook his head.

"This ain't gonna work," he said, and went back into the Knicks locker room.

A lot of things did work for the Knicks last night as they stayed in there with the Celtics before dying in overtime like a fighter running out of legs and out of gas in the 12th round. "I thought we got discouraged," Brown would say later. The Knicks got discouraged and the Celtics beat them to the ball in overtime the way they had beaten them to rebounds all night long and Ricky Davis made a huge three-pointer from the right corner and put the Celtics ahead by seven and finally blew the doors off the game for the Celtics.

This wasn't the old Celtics against the old Knicks at the TD Banknorth Garden. This was Doc Rivers' young Celtics, plus Paul Pierce and Ricky Davis and Raef LaFrentz against Larry Brown's young Knicks, plus Stephon Marbury and Antonio Davis and Mo Taylor. Like that. There was nothing pretty about this, even if it was an entertaining night of basketball. There was nothing to remind you of the old days. It will be Brown's job to make sure the turnovers and the lack of rebounding don't get old, and fast.

Take two for him now.

Media still waiting for him. He came out with his own stat sheet in his hands and leaned against the wall and talked about Celtics 114, Knicks 100 in overtime. Curry would end up with 19 points and eight rebounds, though he should have had twice as many as that last night. Marbury had 22 points and seven assists and this would have been a swell game for him if he didn't shoot free throws as if he were actually lefthanded. Antonio Davis made a tough, tough fallaway in the lane with about two seconds left at the end of regulation to tie the game for the Knicks.

Then it was Celtics 20, Knicks 6 in overtime and that was that on opening night, just a loss on the road that could easily have gone the other way.

"We miss four free throws in a row at one point in the fourth quarter and miss a wide-open dunk (by Trevor Ariza)," Brown said, "and we still got a chance to win the game."

It is rather amazing considering the fact that the Celtics had 17 more free throws and 16 more rebounds. But Pierce had 30 and Davis had 27, including a backbreaking stretch in the overtime when he made the three-pointer and then came right back to make a driving layup. It was Celtics by nine at that point and the Knicks could have started thinking about the home opener right there.

"We'll get better," Brown said.

"We did some good things," he said.

"But we can't shoot free throws that way and get outrebounded that way, especially on the road, and expect to win," Larry Brown said.

Doc Rivers would call Curry a "load," and he is all of that, even if he seemed a lot more active on offense last night than on defense. He was also 7-for-14 from the line, which means he missed as many free throws as Marbury did. A lot of Marbury's came in the fourth quarter and were as deadly as errors in a baseball game. It was that kind of game. Despite the way the Knicks hung in there, despite the flashes you got from Curry and Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes, you remembered the mistakes down the stretch, especially that stretch Brown talked about when his team missed those four free throws and Ariza dunked the ball so atrociously as he went in alone you thought somebody had moved the rim on him.

"Even in the overtime," Brown said in a quiet voice, "Eddy missed one and Jamal missed a wide-open jumper ..."

His voice trailed away. He is with the Knicks now. No Ben Wallace to get the big rebounds last night, no Chauncey Billups to make every big free throw he looked at, no Rasheed Wallace to make the kind of downtown shot that Ricky Davis made in the overtime. He is supposed to make a whole team and a whole game out of what we saw last night in Boston.

He was done talking finally. Said the Knicks would get better again. Walked down the hall to Locker Room 6 where all those coaches waited. Long night, made longer by the overtime. More long nights to come.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/story/361960p-308297c.html

Yea the Celts are a quick and athletic team. This was actually one of my concerns before the game (I was hoping we would play some of our young guys to counter their athleticism and hustle, but that didn't happen). If the Celts were a halfcourt team, we would be 1-0 right now but they made all the hustle plays that our vets couldn't. Not to mention that Ricky Davis and Delonte West outplaying Crawford and Steph helped them a whole lot.

I have to give some credit to Steph though, he really put out an effort on the defensive end and hustled throughout the game. He made some key defensive plays that really kept us in the game and he looks like a different player. I'm still upset that we let that game slip away last night, however, there were some encouraging signs. We got outrebounded and we turned the ball over a lot but somehow we still were able to take it to overtime. A lot of things didn't go right during the game, like Curry's shots going around the rim and barely missing a three point play when he was fouled, this happened like 4 times. Then you have Steph and Eddy uncharacteristically missing a ton of FT's (while Eddy isn't a great FT shooter, he is better than what he did last night). When these things go right, this team is going to be very hard to beat. Larry has to let our guys know that they can't forget about Eddy down the stretch. We went to him on almost every play when he was in the game but our guys kind of got nervous in closing minutes of the 4th quarter and in OT, instead of pounding the ball inside to Eddy you would see one of our guards or forwards just taking the ball upcourt and then going for a jumpshot instead of setting up the offense.

These are all things that can be fixed though. I have to admit that I saw a lot of potential just from that game. Eddy was a beast even though his shots weren't falling, he really is one of the top low post threats in the league and he will only get better. Ariza played very well last night (despite the blown dunk) and was our best rebounder IMO when he was in the game. I don't know if its possible, but he seems to be more aggressive than he was last season. If we are gonna continue to bring Jamal off the bench, we really need to start Trevor and hopefully Brown realizes that. As for Jamal, as you all can tell, I was really pissed off at how he just fumbles the ball at times (at the most crucial times too). If this was the first time, I wouldn't be thinking about it so much, but I remember seeing him do this last season also. I just don't get it, the ball is passed to him and it just goes out of his hands. Its a shame because he really made some nice plays and actually got us back in the game with a nice alley-oop to Barnes down the stretch. I don't know why, but he always seems to screw up when the ball is in his hands and the clock is about to expire (this didn't just happen in OT, but at the end of the 2nd quarter when Jamal fumbled it and luckily Marbury came, got it, and put it in a 3 to end the half).

[Edited by - s3231 on 11-03-2005 09:39 AM]

Well, that was prolly the only thing they did well all night.

We have got to be the dumbest team basketball IQ wise in the league still.

Im sure Brown made them see how horrible they were taking care of the ball and rebounding it. He should also make them all shoot free throw after free throw until they can't anymore. He is the tough coach we wanted since we started getting young players. As Brown said, we will get better.