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October 21, 2008
Boston send Knicks to Powe-House
Some headlines write themselves.
The Celtics beat the Knicks in Madison Square Garden 101-90 as Eddie House picked up where he left off last week against the Knicks (27 points), leading the Beantown Ballers with 20 more long range points. The game wasn't as close as the score might suggest.
Leon Powe got to show off a nice set of post moves against David Lee and whoever else tried to guard him, scoring 19 points on 6 of 11 shots, going 7 of 7 from the line, and led the Cs with 12 rebounds.
It was going to be a strange game right from the start as D'Antoni went with a 3 guard offense. Chris Duhon, Nate Robinson, and Stephon Marbury were starters with David Lee and Wilson Chandler. It was Marbury's first start of the preseason.
According to the Knick announcers, Coach D'Antoni said not to make too much of it. He was still experimenting. It made for some unusual (mis)match-ups like Duhon guarding Pierce, Chandler guarding Garnett, Lee guarding Perkins, Marbury guarding Allen.
If D'Antoni thought it would give them a quickness advantage, that idea was quickly put to rest. The Celtics lead ran up to 20 points for most of the first half and reached 25 for the game. The Knicks shot just .282 for the first half. They did shoot 20 of 38 (53%) in the 2nd half, mostly later against the Celtics bench.
Meanwhile the Knicks shot 1-19 from the 3 point line in the first half and a woeful 4-31 from the arc for the game. The Celtics defense was pretty good but the Knicks did miss many open perimeter shots as well.
Kevin Garnett overpowered the height challenged Knicks for 14 points and 9 rebounds in 19 minutes. Ray Allen had 12 points in 21 minutes. Paul Pierce went 0-7, with 6 points but 4 rebounds and 5 assists, a steal and a block in 21 minutes.
Gabe Pruitt started again as Doc wanted to rest Rondo and get another look at Gabe, who once again did little to hurt his chances of earning a spot on the team. Pruitt was solid if not remarkable with 8 points, 3 assists, 3 rebounds and a steal in 32.5 minutes.
Kendrick Perkins and his healing shoulder played but 13 minutes, scoring 6 points and grabbing 5 boards along with a block while over powering David Lee.
Nate Robinson led the Knicks with 25 points in 31 minutes, followed by Marbury with 14 points. From the Celtic bench, Eddie House had a running discussion with a playing Marbury that got quite prolonged and animated in the first half.
Zach Randolph finished with a double double of 12 points and 11 rebounds while posting the only Knick plus/minus of +7 in 26 minutes. Wilson Chandler, who had been having a solid preseason, turned his ankle in the first half and didn't return. David Lee had 13 rebounds, 7 points, and 2 blocks in 37 minutes.
I'm not sure what good this game did either team. It was the Celtics last exhibition game. They open the season next week against the Cleveland Cavaliers. it would be hard to make too much of what they accomplished against a team in the situation as the Knicks are. The Celtics finished the preseason 6-2 while the Knicks are 3-3 with one more game to go.
In fact, other than saving in travel time, the Celtic preseason schedule with 2 games against the Nets and 2 against the Knicks did not do the Celtics much good, IMO. Nor did it do the Nets or Knicks much good either from my frame of mind. This was poorly thought out by the NBA, I feel.
Both New York area teams are in difficult transitions at the moment, while the Celtics are mostly set and coming off a mind boggling Championship season.
With Darius Miles now gone, the Celtic roster is set for the near term.
Posted by Tom on October 21, 2008 10:24 PM
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