INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, 22 April 2004 — Al Harrington did a nice job filling in for Ron Artest. Jonathan Bender did an even nicer job filling in for Al Harrington.
Harrington had 12 points and 13 rebounds and Bender scored nine of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, lifting the Indiana Pacers to a 103-90 first round playoff victory over the Boston Celtics on Tuesday.
The top-seeded Pacers opened a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference first-round series despite playing without Artest, their All-Star forward and the NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
Artest was suspended for coming off the bench during a brief altercation in Game One, when he hounded Celtics All-Star forward Paul Pierce into 5-of-18 shooting and eight turnovers.
His absence left the assignment to Harrington and Bender, a pair of players who entered the NBA directly out of high school.
“Lots of guys contributed (in defending Pierce)” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.
“I really have to give credit to Jonathan Bender for an incredible effort. He has not had to guard a player of Pierce’s caliber all year and he really did a good job.”
Said Bender, “I just tried to use my length. I’m 7 foot, so I just tried to contest every shot and use my quickness. I just tried to keep him out of his game. It was a great challenge.”
Indiana’s All-Star center Jermaine O’Neal finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds but credited the backups with the win after outscoring the Celtics’ substitutes’, 43-11.
“To see guys like Fred Jones, Jonathan Bender, Austin Croshere, Al Harrington and Anthony Johnson really carry the entire team was great,” O’Neal said. “I told them in the locker room if it weren’t for them, we’d probably lose the game.”
“We just had to do our job,” said reserve Fred Jones, who added 12 of his 17 points in the final frame.
“Our starters have been carrying us the whole year. We felt like we were struggling, so our group came out and tried to give us an emotional lift.”
Harrington, a Sixth Man of the Year candidate, moved into the starting lineup and scored 10 points in the second quarter, keeping Indiana within striking distance. He opened the fourth quarter with a follow dunk that triggered a decisive run. “I felt like I played pretty well,” Harrington said.
Harrington and Bender made Pierce work for his 27 points. Pierce made just 7-of-18 shots as he battled foul trouble and did not get much help from his teammates.
Indiana’s bench outscored Boston’s by a whopping 43-11, including 35-3 in the second half.
The Sacramento Kings played perhaps their best defense of the season and held on for an 83-79 victory over Dallas to take a 2-0 lead in their Western Conference series.
Chris Webber had a triple-double and Mike Bibby and Brad Miller made big shots in the final 90 seconds for the fourth-seeded Kings, who survived in a game entirely unfamiliar to them.
Dallas and Sacramento finished 1-2 in the NBA in scoring this season as the only teams to average better than 100 points per game.
The Kings won Sunday’s opener 116-105 in an up-tempo game typical of these clubs.
However, this was the lowest-scoring game in 126 contests between the teams since Dallas entered the NBA in 1980. Game Three is Saturday in Dallas.
In East Rutherford, New Jersey, Kenyon Martin helped power the New Jersey Nets to another comfortable win.
Martin collected 22 points and a playoff career-high 16 rebounds as the Nets ran roughshod over the New York Knicks for a 99-81 victory and a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference series.
Second-seeded New Jersey placed five players and extended its playoff winning streak over Eastern Conference foes to 12 games.
“We don’t talk, we just go out and play basketball,” Martin said. “All we’ve done is win games.”
76ers Hire O’Brien as New Head Coach
In Los Angeles, the Philadelphia 76ers missed the playoffs for the first time since 1998 but took a giant step to remedy that failure by announcing Tuesday night that they are hiring native son Jim O’Brien as their new head coach.
The team’s president and general manager, Billy King, said O’Brien and the Sixers agreed to the terms of his contract. A formal hiring announcement was to be made at a yesterday’s news conference at the Wachovia Center.
In two full seasons and parts of two others, O’Brien guided the Celtics to a 139-119 record, including the 2002 Eastern Conference finals and to the conference semifinals the next year.
