NBA needs Pierce, Celtics to make finals unforgettable
By JASON WHITLOCK
The Kansas City Star
BOSTON | When evaluating this best-of-seven series pitting the Lakers and the Celtics for the NBA title, don’t forget what’s best for the league.
That’s what ran through my mind when Paul Pierce miraculously emerged from the locker room midway through the third quarter after getting carried and wheel-chaired there by teammates and trainers.
Surely David Stern visited the Boston locker room, reminded Pierce what lengths the league went to orchestrating this throwback, feel-good NBA finals and told Pierce this series can’t be decided game one.
No way. The NBA needs more than that from Pierce and this Celtics-Lakers series. The league needs a Celtics championship or at least an unforgettable, seven-game series. (I’ll explain a little later in this column.) The league can’t have either with Pierce sidelined by a serious knee injury.
So it only made sense that minutes after getting hauled to the locker room like a wounded soldier Pierce jogged to the scorer’s table, checked back into the game and helped Boston finish Los Angeles 98-88 in the series opener.
Pierce, the former Kansas star, is the most important player on the Celtics. No offense to The Big Ticket, Boston’s headline-grabbing offseason acquisition, but Pierce is the driving force behind the Celtics’ championship run.
With Kevin Garnett dropping 16 first-half points and Pierce stuck in neutral contributing three, the Lakers led 51-46 at the break and appeared poised to steal game one on the road. Los Angeles controlled the first 24 minutes without Kobe Bryant putting up MVP numbers. The league’s best player sank just three of 10 first-half shots.
He erupted for 12 in the third quarter. Unfortunately for Lakers fans, Kobe’s explosion was trumped by Pierce’s detonation, which included scoring Boston’s first eight points in the first 73 seconds of the third quarter. Pierce started with a layup, tacked on a four-point play by drawing a foul on a three-point shot and then he drilled an open 15-footer.
Pierce’s run was stopped when teammate Kendrick Perkins crashed him, apparently doing serious damage to Pierce’s right knee. When Pierce was dumped into a wheelchair, I thought the NBA’s dream series, the series that is supposed to make the NBA relevant again, was over before it really got started.
But then Pierce re-emerged with virtually no limp and reignited his assault, eventually draining back-to-back three-pointers late in the third quarter.
“Well, when I first fell to the ground I heard a pop in my knee,” he said. “And all I felt was pain when I grabbed it. And at that point I thought it was just — I thought I tore something.”
Pierce said doctors told him he had a “strained meniscus” and that his knee hurt after the game. You have to think he’ll keep playing. It’s what’s best for the league. And this playoff season is all about restoring the NBA to glory.
I’m not accusing anyone of doing any unethical, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Pau Gasol was given to the Lakers for a ham sandwich and Kwame Brown’s dirty underwear and the Celtics acquired Garnett for even less.
Somebody — somebody very important — wanted Boston and Los Angeles on the NBA’s brightest stage. Maybe it was George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN/ABC Sports, the man paying large sums of money to televise NBA games. Or maybe it was David Stern, the smartest commissioner in professional sports.
