Things got so bad during last night's 101-93 loss to the Celtics that at halftime, teammates Sam Cassell and Chris Gatling nearly came to blows. Anyone who watched the second quarter shouldn't have been surprised. Gatling busted a play and got an earful from Cassell. So as Gatling went to his spot on the post, he elbowed his teammate.
It wasn't just them. Cassell yelled at Calipari during a timeout and had to be coerced into the huddle by an assistant coach and teammate. It was chaos. After the game, the Nets chose their words carefully, with Kendall Gill saying the team needed to stop "playing selfishly" and quit the "one-on-one" play.
Wonder whom he was talking about.
"They were beefing all night," Dee Brown said. And that was fine with the home team.
Walker waiting
Antoine Walker has stated his case. Now all he can do is wait. The Celtics forward gave his statement on the Gatling elbow situation - he insists he didn't hit the Nets forward. Next he'll find out how it goes over with the NBA office.
"I'll probably hear the word on Monday," he said before last night's rematch at the FleetCenter.
Walker plans to appeal the automatic $ 1,000 fine that came with his flagrant foul 2 Wednesday night. That was when official Bernie Fryer determined that he intended to hurt Gatling with an elbow. Even though the league has Walker's words and the tape, the officials' ruling is unlikely to be overturned.
That's progress
The Celtics are 6-6; they won their sixth game last year on Dec. 30 at Denver . . . The Celtics ended the night with a season-high 10 blocked shots . . . Well, you could say they're getting closer. After allowing the Nets a 56-25 advantage in free throw attempts Wednesday, the Celtics closed the gap to 43-37 last night. But the Nets still can't shoot. They missed 16 of their freebies; the Celtics flubbed only four . . . One week after taking an accidental elbow from Toronto's Reggie Slater, Bruce Bowen was back in the Celtics' locker room last night. With some cosmetic changes, of course. The count: two slightly black eyes, white tape across his reset nose, and lots of pain. Bowen is required to stay on the injured list for four more games . . . Calipari began the night talking about the Celtics-Nets rivalry. A few minutes later, he found himself defending his record at the University of Massachusetts. And no one even asked about it. "In eight years, we only had one problem. And that came when I left," the Nets coach said. He was talking about the ineligibility of Marcus Camby, which stripped UMass of its 1996 Final Four finish. "Unfortunately, people want to talk about the last thing that happened and ignore the other seven years."
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