Giving it their best just won't be enough

INDIANAPOLIS -- Depth is a wonderful thing. So, too, is maturity. The Pacers had both last night when it mattered.

The Celtics looked like Justin Rose at Augusta, coming up strong early and then wilting down the stretch. The Pacers turned into Phil Mickelson on the back nine -- making every big shot. Except it was as if Mickelson's caddie were making the big shots.

It was a mind-boggling sight: Indiana starters Jermaine O'Neal, Reggie Miller, Jamaal Tinsley, and Jeff Foster standing and cheering as the subs sliced, diced, and filleted the Celtics with numbing efficiency. O'Neal said after Indiana's 103-90 victory that the reserves were playing so well "it got to the point where I almost didn't want to go back in there because you don't want to mess things up." Eventually he did, but only because Austin Croshere got winded.

That's the humbling truth, sports fans. The Celtics are now in an 0-2 hole in this best-of-seven series and are there because they got overwhelmed in the fourth quarter by Rick Carlisle's reserves.

Paul Pierce lamented that the Celtics' "true colors as a young team" showed in that fourth quarter, the one in which Indiana outscored the Celtics, 38-21, outrebounded them, 13-5, outshot them, 61 percent to 33 percent, and had no turnovers to Boston's two. "We lost our composure," he said.

Here's who was on the floor for Boston when, as Pierce noted, the Celtics' "true colors" showed as a young team: Pierce, Chucky Atkins, Walter McCarty, Ricky Davis, and Mark Blount. That's four-fifths of the starting five. That's not a particularly young team and it's not a particularly inexperienced team. Four of those five have been to the conference finals.

But it was a unit that certainly did lose its composure, no question, in the face of an onslaught led by Fred Jones, Jonathan Bender, Croshere, Anthony Johnson, and Al Harrington. That's one-fifth of the Indy starting five -- and only because Harrington got the starting nod last night over the suspended Ron Artest. Croshere didn't even play in Game 1. All that was missing was injecting Kenny Anderson into the mix.

Pierce got it half-right: The Celtics did lose their composure. But don't start blaming this one on being too young or too inexperienced. Marcus Banks was watching. Jiri Welsch was watching for most of it. Chris Mihm was watching. Bully Brandon Hunter was watching.

Simply, the bottom fell out -- and it fell out while the people John Carroll wants and needs to be out there were out there. And they were embarrassed by the Indiana subs, who knocked down threes, drove to the basket and put the game away by outscoring the Celtics, 18-1, over a stretch of four minutes in the third and fourth quarters.

It fell out because you're starting to see why one of these teams won 61 games and steamrolled through the East and the other struggled to win 36 games and back-doored its way into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed by losing five straight down the stretch. Not to belabor the obvious, but do you think Indiana could start its reserves and still take this thing in five or six games? It sure looks that way. And, oh yes, this is the playoffs. Indiana's up again. Golden State is not coming through that door anytime soon.

Carroll was talking before the game about the absence of Artest, who will be back in full defensive bore Friday night for Game 3 in Boston. Carroll said he was still concerned about the Pacers because they are a deep team that did win 61 games and, although he didn't say it, were 6-2 in the games Artest missed because of injuries or suspension.

"Unfortunately, I was right," Carroll said afterward.

The coach talked about how disappointing it was "to fold like that in the fourth quarter." He talked about the Celtics being a boat with 20 holes and having only 10 plugs. He called his team's second-half offense "horrendous."

And, he said, the team showed its immaturity in the fourth quarter.

That's one way to describe a meltdown. But the truth is more that the Celtics are overmatched -- and that their best players, their most experienced players, were on the floor when the meltdown occurred.

All that means is what we've known for a while: that Danny Ainge has a lot of work to do to get this team to where he wants it to be. And that what he has right now might not be good enough to beat the Pacers' B team. That certainly was the case last night when the game was on the line.