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Midterm grades for the B’s and C’s
BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

As we pause near the midpoint for both of Boston’s professional winter sports teams, the only real conclusion one can reach is that it is impossible to forecast how both teams will fare. The Bruins got off to one of the hottest starts in franchise history, then endured one of the lengthiest slumps in recent memory, and are now playing at a level somewhere in between. The Celtics have shown some signs of brilliance, yet at other times have exhibited mind-blowing ineptitude, suffering some of the most embarrassing losses in team history, and as a result, they too are difficult to pin down.

The only constant about the two teams is their maddening lack of consistency.

The Bruins, as most people around here know, came into the season with very low expectations. They had lost their top scorer to free agency, they had allowed their top goaltender to seek greener pastures, and their top defenseman had mysteriously decided that he no longer wanted to play for the club. This collective loss did not bode well for a team that was coming off a regular-season Eastern Conference top-seed ranking (despite a first-round playoff dispatching).

The Bruins opened the season with a disheartening 5-1 loss at Minnesota, but then proceeded to play lights-out hockey for the next eight weeks, compiling a 19-4-3-1 record and taking over the top spot in many publications’ NHL power rankings. Boston then inexplicably fell back to earth, miring itself in a 3-14-1 slump and dropping into third place within its own division. Things turned around with a 7-2 thumping of Columbus on January 18, and the B’s have gone 4-2-1-1 since that home victory.

Nonetheless, on the heels of last Thursday’s emotional 6-3 victory over the hated Canadiens came a lackluster 5-2 home loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, a team that came into Boston having gone 1-6-1 in its previous contests. If not for a 5-3 home victory over Chicago on January 25, the Pens would have been winless for three full weeks, all the while being outscored 23-6. Included in that eight-game victory drought were three games in which the Penguins were shut out, and four more in which the team scored two goals or fewer.

Two days before Mario Lemieux & Co. visited the FleetCenter, Pittsburgh lost to Florida, 6-0, at home — a startling setback to a Panther team that itself had been winless in regulation since mid-January and coming in had only won 15 games in its first 53.

So how does one explain Pittsburgh’s 5-2 pasting of the Bruins on Saturday afternoon? A bad night for the home team? Perhaps. A visiting team fired up by owner/captain Lemieux’s four assists and breaking out of a slump? I guess.

Whatever it was, Pittsburgh appeared to come into Boston as a team ripe for the taking. Yet even as the two teams appeared to be heading in opposite directions, they reversed roles for this nationally televised contest, and the seemingly rejuvenated Bruins again suffered a demoralizing loss.

With the Disney on Ice show taking over the FleetCenter for the next two weeks, the Bruins will be sent packing for a seven-game road trip that will take them to Montreal, Florida, Nashville, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Long Island. When they return on February 25 for a home tilt against arguably the NHL’s best team, the Dallas Stars, Boston will have a good idea where it stands heading into the final six weeks of the year.

At 27-20-5-2, the Bruins are still third in the Northeast Division, four points behind second-place Toronto and a whopping 15 points behind division- (and conference-) leading Ottawa. If the playoffs were to open today, Boston would qualify as the sixth seed, and be meeting Southeast Division leader Washington (26-21-7-3) in the first round.

The key factor in determining how the Bruins will fare in postseason play is simple: which team will show up? The November version (10-1-1-1) or the mid-December-to-mid-January edition (3-14-1)? The return of injured winger Sergei Samsonov (wrist surgery) could help the team’s fortunes, but if Dr. Jekyll shows up in April and May, it could be a parade in June; if it’s Mr. Hyde skating through that door, it’ll be the 31st-straight dismal summer for Boston’s hockey hardcores.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the hard-court front, coach Jim O’Brien’s band of 12 is pretty much at the same point that it was at this juncture last season. At 27-22 with 33 games left to play, the Celtics are in second place in the Atlantic Division, seven games behind New Jersey but two games in front of Philadelphia. Also lurking close behind are Michael Jordan’s Washington Wizards (10 back) and the underachieving Orlando Magic (10 and a half behind).

Not surprisingly, the Celtics have ridden the backs of their superstars, Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce, while getting significant contributions from center Tony Battie, point guard J.R. Bremer, and shooting guard Tony Delk. Pierce (40.8 percent) and Walker (39.3 percent) have struggled all season long with their shooting, but the tandem still provides a one-two punch that most opponents cannot completely shut down on a nightly basis, and between them they are averaging nearly 50 points a night for the Green. Fatigue may be a factor down the stretch for the Celtics, as the dynamic duo are both averaging over 40 minutes per game, and the bench is basically just two men deep. Shammond Williams, Vin Baker, and the rest of the roster are for the most part just taking up space, and only Walter McCarty and Eric Williams are making contributions off the pine.

The Celtics have not been nearly as inconsistent as their FleetCenter co-residents have been, but they too have had a fair share of their impressive victories cancelled out by mind-numbing disasters. Boston has beaten its share of good teams (New Jersey, Philadelphia, Orlando, Indiana, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Minnesota, LA Lakers), but has also suffered some losses that defy explanation. Submitted for your (dis)approval: a pair of losses to 17-32 Chicago, two losses to 17-32 Miami, a home loss to 14-34 Toronto, and two losses to 24-25 Washington. Wait — we’re not done; who can forget these setbacks that go far beyond the definition of embarrassing: a 114-69 road loss at Washington, a 117-81 Christmas Day roasting on national TV at New Jersey, a 90-70 road shellacking at Miami two days later, a 103-78 horsewhipping in Dallas, and the pièce de résistance, a franchise-worst 118-66 loss at home just a week ago to Detroit. In that latter debacle, the Pistons actually led by 60 points at one point.

Since early November, the Celts have collected two four-game win streaks, one four-game losing streak, and two three-game losing streaks. Other than that, it’s win two, lose one, win one, lose two, ad infinitum. Teams like Memphis and Cleveland would certainly take that kind of pattern; for Boston fans, it’s somewhat frustrating and disconcerting for a team reportedly on the rise to struggle for any semblance of uniformity in its nightly performances.

The Celtics, like the Bruins, have to vacate the Causeway Street premises for the next two weeks, and their travels will take them to Seattle, Portland, LA (Clippers), Phoenix, Golden State, and Sacramento. On paper, Boston could be expected to take at least three wins (Sonics, Clippers, and Warriors), and should have a chance in Arizona. More likely, though, the Celts will be lucky to bring home a couple of victories, if that, and the February 20 date against the Kings could be downright revolting.

If the season were to end today, Boston would be the fourth seed, and, armed with a home-court advantage, would be meeting Milwaukee, New Orleans, or familiar-face Philly in the newly constituted best-of-seven first round of the playoffs.

The Celtics have shown that they can play with the big boys, but they have also displayed a knack for playing down to the depths of some of their competition. More ominous is the fact that of the potential playoff teams emerging from the West, Boston has beaten only Minnesota and a Shaq-less Lakers team thus far this season, so any hopes of a world title this year are downright laughable.

For both teams, it’s been win some, lose some throughout the season. The Bruins followed that pattern in distinct halves of their first 50 games; the Celtics have displayed that stability/instability model throughout the campaign, with no discernible prototype emerging.

Either way, we’ll know more about the teams’ respective fortunes when they touch down at Logan two weekends hence.

Whether we’ll have a clear picture then as to their true identities is another story.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com

Issue Date: February 10, 2003
"Sporting Eye" archives: 2002

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