|
|
 |
 |
|
| |
Friday, Mar. 17 7:30pm ET
Walker's 30 points leads Celtics' charge | |||||
|
| ||||||
RECAP
|
BOX SCORE
|
 GAME FLOW
ATLANTA (AP) -- Antoine Walker scored 30 points for the Boston Celtics, whose season is looking brighter. Isaiah Rider will score no more points for the Atlanta Hawks, whose season has fallen apart. The Hawks released Rider after he showed up late for Friday night's game, a 114-90 loss to the Celtics. "It's reached a point where we really need to sever the ties and go in a different direction," said Hawks general manager Pete Babcock, whose team lost for the seventh time in eight games and dropped to 24-40. Rider, acquired by the Hawks in October, had repeatedly run afoul of team rules -- especially when it came to timeliness. He already had been suspended twice and fined numerous times. Last week, Babcock threatened a three-game suspension the next time he was late. When Rider showed up 10 minutes after the deadline Friday night, the team wouldn't let him play. Rider refused to accept a suspension, calling it a financial decision. So the Hawks agreed to waive him. "It didn't work. Period. That's it," coach Lenny Wilkens said. "I'm not going to belabor the point. We just lost a tough game. We didn't play very well at all." Walker shot 12-of-18 from the field, including 4-of-5 the 3-point arc. Overall, the Celtics had six players in double figures and attempted 99 shots -- 27 more than the Hawks. Boston has a 45-35 edge on the boards and forced the Hawks into 19 turnovers. The Celtics moved within two games of idle Milwaukee for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 17 games remaining. "That was intensity at its best, when you realize what's at stake," coach Rick Pitino said. "We got on the floor and fought for every loose basketball. We were very hungry for a win." Even though the Celtics were playing the first of back-to-back road games, they weren't interesting in conserving their energy. "We changed out strategy a bit," Pitino said. "We have to press to try to get into an up-tempo game. So we pressed for 2{ quarters trying to up-tempo the game. We didn't play in the 80s, because that's what (the Hawks) wanted to do." Atlanta, losing for the seventh time in eight games, never led against a team that entered the night with a 6-25 record on the road. The Hawks were down by 10 before the game was six minutes old, trailed 54-43 at the half and fell behind by as many as 22 in the third period as the Celtics broke the game open. The Hawks' futility was summed up by a sequence in the third, when Jim Jackson botched a dunk but grabbed the rebound, only to have the follow shot blocked by Tony Battie. For good measure, Chris Crawford missed another dunk in the final quarter. Jackson scored 26 points to lead the Hawks, who had only one other player in double figures -- Dikembe Mutombo with 19 points. Clearly, the Hawks were distracted by the Rider situation. "We didn't know what was going on," Mutombo said. "We saw him in the locker room, but when we went out to warm up, he wasn't out there." Atlanta got within 43-40 on two free throws by Mutombo with 3:47 remaining in the first half. But the Celtics closed with an 11-3 run and the Hawks never threatened again.
Game notes | ALSO SEE NBA Scoreboard Boston Clubhouse Atlanta Clubhouse Rider released after showing up late for Hawks game
RECAPS Indiana 111 Houston 102
Boston 114
  | |||||