BASKETBALL NOTES
Rocky road ahead for Celtics
By Peter May | December 4, 2005
Get me through December/ A promise I'll remember/Just get me through December/ So I can start again. The melodious Alison Krauss sings those words. Doc Rivers and the Celtics are about to live them. From today in New York through Jan. 2 in Denver (all right, a little artistic license taken), the Celtics will truly have a December to remember. They may even live to tell about it so that they can, indeed, start again. Including the game in Denver -- because it's the finale of the annual post-Christmas trip -- the Celtics will have played 16 games, all but five of them on the road, from Dec. 1 to Jan. 2. And Friday night's game against the Bulls was one of the homers, so, starting today against the Knicks, they play 11 of their next 15 on the road, where they have gone winless so far in four tries. So as not to be accused of being overly negative, we will focus our December preview solely on the upcoming trip, the first real roadie of the season, which is a brutal one. It features five games in seven days and the team's first experience with that NBA staple: four games in five nights. Today vs the Knicks: This is the second meeting of the season. The first was on Opening Night in Boston, when the game went into overtime before the Celtics prevailed. You'll see a different Knicks team than the one you saw Nov. 2. Larry Brown has moved rookie Channing Frye into the starting lineup. Frye, the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for November, did not play in Boston. New York got off to a disastrous start (0-5) and Friday's game against the Pistons was the team's 10th roadie of the season. And the Knicks have three more out West after today.Tuesday vs. the Rockets: The Rockets are the NBA's biggest disappointment to date. But part of the reason for their woeful start is the ongoing back troubles of Tracy McGrady, without whom they are a spiffy 0-8. The Celtics drilled the Rockets (and T-Mac) by 20 when the teams met three weeks ago in Boston, holding McGrady to 14 inconsequential points. The Celtics have not swept a season series from the Rockets since 1990-91. Like the Celtics, the Rockets went through the month of November without winning two in a row. McGrady has since returned, but his status is always iffy.Wednesday vs. the Hornets: The relocated Hornets have done much better in Oklahoma City than many predicted. Rookie Chris Paul, about whom the Celtics inquired on draft night, has been a keeper, and the team played .500 ball through the end of the month (7-7). To give you some idea how much better that is than last year, the Hornets didn't win their seventh game until Jan. 22. So you can safely say they have survived the loss of Dan Dickau. Paul was the Western Conference's Rookie of the Month for November, and David West has emerged of late. This will be the Celtics' only visit to Oklahoma City.
Friday vs. the Spurs: Geez, should they even show up? The good news is that the Celtics will be done with Tim Duncan & Co. after this. San Antonio made it 16 straight over Boston last month when it blew away the Celtics by 21. Duncan, as we've noted before, has never lost to the Celtics, although there have been a couple of close calls. He had 29 and 12 in less than 31 minutes Nov. 11 in Boston. One possible reason for hope is the status of Manu Ginobili, who is bothered by ankle and shoulder woes. But if he can't go, Gregg Popovich rolls out Michael Finley, who did not play in Boston. The more things change, etc.Saturday vs. the Mavericks: Talk about your back-to-backs. The Spurs and Mavericks might be the two best teams in the West, and the Celtics have to play them within 24 hours. The Celtics have lost nine of their last 10 to the Mavericks -- the win came in Antoine Walker's first game in Boston after being traded to Dallas -- and have never won in American Airlines Center. Dirk Nowitzki is off to another excellent start, and Avery Johnson, the conference Coach of the Month for November, actually has Dallas thinking about playing defense. Now, if he can only reach Erick Dampier, he'll be a lock for Coach of the Year.Pierce is thinking worldly againHe said the same thing a couple of years ago, and it fell on deaf ears. But Paul Pierce once again would like the powers that be to know he'd be interested in playing for the United States in the 2006 World Championships. ''Of course I would," said Pierce, although he raised both eyebrows when told it might mean a commitment of three consecutive summers, with a potential 2007 zone qualifier and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. ''Seeing that I had a bad experience the first time around, it would be great to get that bitter taste out of my mouth," he said. The question isn't whether Pierce might merit a berth. It's whether the folks at USA Basketball have decided to let bygones be bygones. Pierce was not a popular guy on the 2002 World Championship team, which finished sixth at Indianapolis. One USA Basketball official called Pierce ''disruptive" and George Karl, who coached the team, said, ''Paul just pushed the line, pushed the line. His reaction to the negativity, to a crisis, was that we all have to protect ourselves, our own egos." Calls left Karl in a foul moodIt's one thing to suggest that an official's call played a part in the outcome of a close game. For instance, Utah's Jerry Sloan thought his team had beaten the Lakers last Thursday night, but Kobe Bryant was deemed to have been fouled with .04 seconds left and his team trailing by 2. He made them both and Los Angeles went on to win in overtime.
''I didn't see the foul," said Sloan, who was already on his way to the locker room. ''That's why I took two steps the other way. That's why you don't do that." Then you have George Karl. After Denver lost at home to the Nets, the Nuggets coach accused Vince Carter of flopping and said he thought that the league was cracking down on floppers. (Now that Vlade Divac has retired, much of the flopping went with him.) But a day later, Karl crossed the proverbial line with these observations: ''We got 20-some free throws in the third quarter, and [the officials] knew that and they flip-flopped it real quick. They say that's not how they referee the game. That's a bunch of [bad stuff]. Then, to have three touch fouls [i.e. the Carter flops] . . . ''They took our hope away by what I call kind of cheap calls." He went on to note that Denver got a lot of ''touch" calls early in the game but none later. ''The reason they didn't call [the fouls] is because they realized we had an advantage [earlier]," said Karl. Those bon mots resulted in a two-game suspension, costing the Denver coach about $80,000. The Nuggets organization also was fined. Karl has missed four games this year with suspensions, the first two coming in Games 1 and 2 because he attended a summer draft workout. The Nuggets lost all four. Etc.Last Wednesday's game against the 76ers represented the smallest Boston crowd (14,027) to see Allen Iverson since the Celtics moved from the old Garden to the new Garden after the 1994-95 season. Usually, the Sixers and Iverson are one of the few guaranteed sellouts; seven of Philadelphia's previous eight visits resulted in sellouts and the other drew a respectable 16,721 during the 2002-03 season. Since Iverson was drafted No. 1 overall in 1996, the 76ers have made 19 regular-season visits to the new Garden. Eleven of them have been sellouts. Prior to Wednesday's game, the smallest Boston crowd to see the Iverson-led 76ers was 14,733 on Nov. 8, 1996. Wachovia watchers dwindle Philadelphia, meanwhile, drew a mere 12,676 last Tuesday when the Trail Blazers made their only visit to the Wachovia Center. It represented the third crowd of less than 13,000 this season in a building with a capacity of 20,310. When the Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News polled its website readers about the reasons for the declining attendance, one of the five possible responses was ''Missing Jim O'Brien." Alas, that received the fewest votes. The one with the most votes: ''Can't Afford It." There wasn't much joy in Moscow after FIBA's decision not to invite the Russians to next year's World Championships, which are recognized by everyone but the United States as the world's foremost basketball competition. Russia, ranked No. 7 in the world, lost out to No. 18 Turkey, which happens to be the host of the 2010 Worlds. ''Let them send us a document explaining by what criteria Turkey earned a pass to Japan. There are reasons to believe it is not sports-related," a Russian Basketball Federation official told Izvestia. Russia's best player, Andrei Kirilenko, didn't seem distraught over the news, knowing full well that it means he can have the summer to himself. ''We don't deserve it," he told the Deseret News. That's because Russia lost in the quarterfinals of the European qualifier to eventual champion Greece. Funny, but Kirilenko's Utah Jazz teammate, Turk Mehmet Okur, said the same thing about his country's invite. And Turkey didn't even get to the quarterfinals! Another country bypassed was Canada, ranked 12th in the world, which lost out to 11th-ranked Puerto Rico. Said former Canadian National team center Todd MacCulloch, ''It's really too bad. I really had thought Canada was starting to show up on the international map, but it's getting harder and harder to qualify in our zone, with teams like the US, Brazil, and Argentina."
Good to see that Phil Jackson, who must need the money, is cutting back on the extracurricular stuff. In his previous LA incarnation, Jackson kept a diary in his last season, and it turned into a bestseller, in no small part because of some unflattering stuff about Kobe Bryant. Now Jackson has joined the same team as Howard Stern, not to be confused with David Stern. The Lakers coach has been signed by Sirius Radio to do a weekly one-hour NBA talk show with Ian Eagle. The show debuts tomorrow night. No word yet whether Red Auerbach will be Phil's first guest. The Clippers' Elton Brand was named Western Conference Player of the Month for November. According to the team, it marked just the second time a Clipper had won such an award. The other was Freeman Williams -- in December 1980. Williams, of course, has a brief Boston history. He was drafted by the Celtics in 1978, two slots behind Larry Bird. But he never played for Boston, as his draft rights were sent west that summer in the famed franchise swap with Buffalo/San Diego along with Sidney Wicks, Kevin Kunnert, and Kermit Washington. The Celtics received Marvin Barnes, Nate Archibald, and Billy Knight. How's this for a Celtics alumni team: Curtis Borchardt, Rodney Rogers, Tom Gugliotta, Qyntel Woods, and Erick Strickland? What do they have in common? They're all unsigned free agents, although Borchardt may have landed a job overseas. There are more attractive names out there, such as Christian Laettner, Latrell Sprewell, and George Lynch. Another reason they may still be looking for work: the number of open roster spots. Agent Steve Kauffman, who represents Lynch, said there are only nine roster openings in the entire league, two of them on the Spurs. ''You may start to see some movement when contracts need to be guaranteed [next month] but, right now, teams are reluctant to go sign free agents if it means cutting the kid who made the team in training camp," Kauffman said. Another possible issue: money. There's a shocker. Sprewell's agent has made it clear that his client, who turned down a $21 million extension from Minnesota, won't lower himself to play for the veteran minimum of around $1 million. That would, however, feed Spree's family. Material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report. 
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
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