Rick Majerus should take cover. Rick Pitino is in town.
Fortunately for Majerus and his Utes, Pitino isn't bringing the Kentucky Wildcats with him.Instead, it's the new-look Boston Celtics - which includes a trio of ex-Kentucky players who have been reunited with their college mentor - that have arrived. And this time, Pitino's crew will be Jerry Sloan's problem, not Majerus'. The Jazz will get their first look at the Celtics this year at 7 p.m. in the Delta Center.
Pitino's Kentucky teams ended the University of Utah's basketball season three times in five years by beating the Utes in the NCAA Tournament - including last season in the Elite Eight.
But Pitino, the former New York Knicks coach, opted to return to the NBA in an attempt to revitalize the most tradition-rich franchise in the league's history.
The once-proud Celtics were an embarrassing 15-67 last year. Only the Vancouver Grizzlies, at 14-68, were worse.
Pitino came in and made wholesale players personnel changes. He, as the team's president as well as the coach, signed several free agents - including ex-Alta High star Travis Knight - and made a couple of trades, one to get one of his former Wildcats, Walter Mc-Carty. He drafted another Wild-cat, Ron Mercer, in the first round (sixth overall) to go along with fellow first-round pick Chauncey Billups (third overall) out of Colorado. With rising star Antoine Walker, also an ex-Kentucky Wildcat, already in tow, the Celtics had the basis of a young, up-and-coming team.
The one-year turnaround in the Celtics has been remarkable. Walker has become a bona fide All-Star, while both Billups and Mercer earned spots in the rookie All-Star game last Saturday night. Even though Boston lost Tuesday to the lowly Denver Nuggets, the Celtics, at 22-26, still harbor hopes of postseason play.
"Our goal is to make the playoffs," said Walker during All-Star Weekend. "We just want to get ourselves into a position where we will be playing for something, not just to play out the season."
Pitino brought with him from Kentucky a trapping, intense style of play. It didn't hurt having Walker, Mercer and McCarty already familiar with the offense and defense. Twice this season the Celtics have forced teams into 32 turnovers in a single game - the highest number in the league.
"They are going to make you play hard," said Sloan. "They make your turn the ball over if you don't have good concentration. They do a great job of trapping and keeping pressure on you all the time and in trying to make you make the wrong decision."
Said Billups, "We cause a lot of problems and I don't think that people like playing against us because they know that we are going to get after them. Even if you have us down 15 or 20, we are going to keep coming."
The Celtics, in addition to losing to Denver on Tuesday, lost an assistant coach. Winston Bennett, the former Kentucky star and NBA player, was an assistant at Kentucky under Pitino who came over with him to Boston. But Bennett left the team this week "to try and get his life back together," according to Pitino. Bennett returned to Kentucky in an attempt to work out marital difficulties, with his wife, Peggy. Pitino told the Boston Globe that the parting was a "mutual decision" and that he didn't foresee Bennett returning.