BOSTON (AP) — It was a good night for Craig Smith to have an off-game.

With the preseason All-America forward slowed by foul trouble and a cut over his eye, Jared Dudley scored 20 points on Tuesday to help No. 10 Boston College beat Buffalo 92-63.

“I couldn’t find any sort of rhythm, so it was difficult for me,” said Smith, who had 12 points and four rebounds. “It’s a good feeling when I’m down and guys can pick us up.”

Smith missed seven minutes in the first half due to foul trouble and six minutes in the second when a cut over his left eye required six stitches. The senior forward, who averaged 18 points and 11 rebounds in BC’s first two games, also sat out the last four minutes of the blowout and played only 23 minutes in all.

“We tried to attack him. We didn’t try to run away and hope he didn’t hurt us,” Buffalo coach Reggie Witherspoon said. “We did some good things early, attacking inside. But we didn’t do anything to sustain it.”

Sean Marshall scored 16 as Boston College improved to 3-0 in the non-conference part of its inaugural Atlantic Coast Conference season.

“Craig is a big player for us,” Dudley said. “When he goes out of the game, I’m looking to score and Sean’s looking to score. We know we can score.”

Yassin Idbihi scored 22 with 10 rebounds and Parnell Smith had 18 and eight for Buffalo (2-1), which dropped to 0-16 all-time against the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The game was the second round of the Las Vegas Holiday Invitational but it was played on BC’s Chestnut Hill campus. Both teams will travel to Nevada for the final rounds this weekend.

The Eagles were 6-for-10 from the experimental 3-point line being used in the tournament, a foot farther than the conventional one; BC went 0-for-11 from 3-point range in its first game with the temporary rule. Boston College freshman guards Tyrese Rice and Marquez Haynes scored 12 and eight points, respectively, and combined to make 7-of-8 shots and all three free throws.

“We love to play with him (Smith),” BC coach Al Skinner said. “But we’ve played without him, and we know where to go for offense when we need to.”

Smith scored six points during a 12-0 run that broke the game open midway through the first half, turning a 13-10 game into a 15-point lead. But BC showed it could dominate without him, too.

Smith went to the bench after picking up his second foul with 7:07 left in the first half. BC responded by going on a 13-0 run that made it 42-17 with 2:56 left in the half.

Smith left the floor just 1:20 into the second half with a cut above his eye. When he came back in with 13:04 to play, BC was leading 68-35.

He picked up his fourth foul with 8:46 to play, when BC led 72-44, and Skinner just left him in the game. Smith also sat out the last four minutes of the game.

Accentuating the positive is Pierce’s plan this season
By Shira Springer, Globe Staff | November 1, 2005

Paul Pierce works the phones for a couple of minutes, organizing an evening of Texas Hold ‘Em poker with his teammates. The basement of his 7,200-square-foot house is fully equipped for fun. Red velvet pool table. Adequately stocked bar. Theater projection screen in front of an overstuffed black leather couch and two matching recliners. And in front of a barely stocked trophy case, the centerpiece: A poker table with four chairs like the ones in the Celtics’ locker room, except Pierce has had his number and ‘’The Truth” inscribed on them. Celtic poker chips are coming soon.

As he gives a tour from the weight room, complete with heavy bag for unleashing postgame frustrations, to the backyard, with speakers embedded in boulders, Pierce is surprisingly at home, a kid from Inglewood, Calif., comfortable in the New England woods. The house’s gray-shingled façade and its proximity to the team’s practice facility appealed to Pierce. He purchased the house about 18 months ago when it was under construction and trade rumors concerning the Celtics captain had not yet surfaced.

Despite all that happened last season, he has no regrets about the $2.5 million investment. He has plans to decorate with pictures of his career highlights, signed jerseys from former greats such as Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Hakeem Olajuwon, and Celtics memorabilia. He envisions a team hangout, a retreat from the demands of playing in a sports-obsessed city. For Pierce, his home is a sign of his commitment to Boston, albeit one few people will see.

‘’People perceive me by what they see on the basketball court,” said Pierce, between bites of pizza at his kitchen counter. ‘’That’s not really fair because who I am on the basketball court is not the person that I really am. But that’s the only thing that people see. Lately, people have said I’m not coachable. I don’t get along with my teammates. I’m moody. I’m a bad influence. I don’t know where that comes from. None of it really bothers me because I know myself and I know who I am.

‘’The so-called superstars of the league are not the same people on the court or around in public as they are away from it. If they say they are, half of them are hypocrites. You act a certain way. You talk a certain way [in public.] You don’t act the same way at work as you do at home, where you’re most comfortable. This is who I am, relaxing at my home. We’re gonna have a poker game tonight, enjoy the fellas.”

As captain, leading scorer, and highest-paid player ($13.8 million this season), Pierce is the most visible Celtic. He has few private places or private moments. He left his Waltham condominium because too many fans knew where he lived. Without Antoine Walker around to deflect attention for much of the past two seasons, Pierce was held responsible for the Celtics’ failures. At times, he did not deal well with the spotlight. But Pierce disagrees with those who consider him to be too emotional, selfish, immature, and undisciplined, a problem player who must be traded.

By Shira Springer, Globe Staff | November 25, 2005

If Celtics coach Doc Rivers had to pick one mistake out of the ‘’probably 50″ he acknowledged making against Atlanta, it would be the lack of playing time allotted to Kendrick Perkins.
Not because Perkins could have single-handedly won the game or proven more skilled than the players on the court for the Celtics’ 120-117 loss to Atlanta at Philips Arena Wednesday night. Pure basketball talent is not what brought Perkins to mind. It was attitude and physical play. Perkins makes the most of the time he earns. If there is a loose ball, particularly a rebound, he goes after it with abandon. He might not always execute properly. He might pick up fouls with disturbing frequency. But the desire and consistent work ethic are there. In some circles, Perkins might be considered the antithesis of Mark Blount.

Rivers knows Perkins is not the solution to the Celtics’ growing list of problems — lack of toughness, inept defense, turnovers, unsettled rotation, and a center more concerned with touches than rebounds. But Perkins represents the ‘’character” player Rivers wants on the floor, at least for more than the 8 minutes 10 seconds the third-year big man played against the Hawks. And Perkins understands. Like his play, he holds nothing back in assessing the current state of the Celtics.

‘’I think we’re too laid-back,” said Perkins. ‘’We fight for a couple minutes, then we get too casual. Then, we fight for a couple minutes more. Everybody has got to put everything on the line. When it’s game time, it’s game time. You’ve got to come play every night. Some nights some people come to play. Some nights certain people don’t come to play. You may have bad shooting nights, but you still have to put forth the effort every night. We don’t get that out of most guys every night. It’s effort and that’s what we’ve got to get.”

Those are big words for somebody averaging 3 rebounds per game in 9.1 minutes. But somebody besides Rivers had to address the team’s issues, not dance around them with euphemisms and talk of learning lessons because of youth and inexperience.

After a promising start with an overtime victory against New York in the season opener, a close game with Detroit, a buzzer-beater to defeat Memphis, and a blowout of Houston, Boston is 1-4 in its last five games, the lone win over Atlantic Division bottom-dweller Toronto.

A closer look at the numbers makes the last five Celtics games more disconcerting. The Raptors were the only team the Celtics held below 100 points. During that stretch, Toronto was also the only team to shoot less than 45 percent (all but Cleveland shot better than 50 percent). On average for the season, Celtics’ opponents are averaging 102.5 points and shooting 47 percent. The Celtics have committed 17.6 turnovers per game, including averaging 19 in the last two games.

‘’The better team won [Wednesday night],” said Rivers, who gave the players yesterday off. ‘’I don’t have any problem saying that. I don’t know if it’s effort or toughness. You can fix effort, but I don’t know if you can fix toughness. You know what they say, ‘If you don’t bite as a puppy, you won’t bite as a dog.’ That’s about the truth. We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to be more physical. We’ve got to keep working.

‘’There’s going to be tough stretches in the year for everybody; no one’s running away with our division. We can do a lot of things better to be a better basketball team.”

Far from running away, the Celtics are moving backward. Rivers acknowledged the team struggles with defensive fundamentals, not schemes. The Celtics make sloppy mistakes on offense and exercise poor shot selection at critical moments. Long gone are the days when Paul Pierce kicked out to Ricky Davis for an open winner against Memphis as time expired Nov. 9.

When asked if he was concerned about the Celtics’ recent struggles, Pierce said, ‘’Not yet.”

He added: ‘’It’s just about how bad you really want it. If you hate to lose and losing hurts and these guys really feel it, then they’ll do something about it. If not, then we’re going to continue to be the team that we are.”

A glance around the visitors’ locker room after the loss to the Hawks showed who really hurt. Pierce and Rivers were among the last to leave. As they exited, Rivers patted Pierce on the shoulder. In the coming weeks, the Celtics’ play will probably determine whether they will compete this season or use their young players more.