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Celtics don’t see the humor in Pierce’s miraculous return
BOSTON | It’s really rather funny. But the Celtics have no interest in laughing. None.
They can’t find any humor (yet) in Paul Pierce’s right knee, his air-lifted and wheelchaired evacuation from game one of the NBA finals and stunning return 2 minutes later.
The Lakers want to share a good-natured laugh about it. On Friday, less than 24 hours after Boston’s series-opening victory, Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson joked that Oral Roberts must have visited Pierce in the locker room.
“Paul got carried off and was back on his feet in a minute,” Jackson observed. “I don’t know if the angels visited him … but he didn’t even limp when he came back out on the floor.”
Kobe Bryant burst into laughter when a radio talk-show host asked him about the “Paul Pierce drama,” and then composed himself and tried to respond seriously.
“I was happy to see him come out there until he made those two damn threes,” Bryant said.
The Paul Pierce Drama-Knee-dy is funny. Trust me. If Pierce plays effectively the rest of this series, Pierce’s high-priority triage will be lampooned by Letterman, Leno, Kimmel and Sir Charles Barkley all next season on TNT’s studio show.
You don’t get carried off the court by two teammates, plopped into a wheelchair, return minutes later and unspool three-point daggers that bury the Lakers. Not without getting teased. This was far worse than when Dwyane Wade left the court in a wheelchair after hurting his shoulder.
In fact, Pierce’s Drama-Knee-dy is nearly as funny as the Wade-Star Jones rumors. OK, that’s a bit of a stretch. There are few things funnier than an in-his-prime NBA superstar getting bagged by a gastric-bypassed Cougar on the rebound.
I digress and dilute my point.
The Celtics can’t see the humor in any of this right now because they have a sense of urgency about this best-of-seven series that the Lakers couldn’t match Thursday and may not be capable of equaling throughout the finals.
The Celtics are all business. The Big Three (Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen) are middle-aged in NBA years and realize this might be their only shot at a ring. Kobe and Phil already have 13 rings between them. Kobe’s young supporting cast, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and injured Andrew Bynum, have every reason to believe they’ll be playing in at least two or three more finals series during the next five years.
So when informed of the Lakers’ skepticism (in fairness, the reporters did not convey the good-natured way the Lakers questioned Pierce’s injury), Garnett and head coach Doc Rivers declined to laugh.
“He hurt,” Garnett said incredulously. “It’s not up to them to approve or disapprove or judge. The man got carried off the court. I mean, that’s pretty significant. I don’t know what they’re doing over there. I’m focused on what we’re doing over here.”
Rivers added: “Aren’t we skeptics anyway now about everything? So what the heck; let it begin. Let it begin. Lee Harvey Oswald did it.”
Well, actually Kendrick Perkins did it. He came down on the back of Pierce’s body and legs and set Drama-Knee-dy into motion. I don’t have any doubts the injury is significant. Pierce acknowledged that he couldn’t play a game on Friday. Emotion and adrenaline carried him on Thursday. And it’s likely to get him through the rest of this series. He predicted there’s a “great chance” he’ll play on Sunday.
We forget these are young men playing a kid’s game. At this moment, Pierce wants to win this series more than he wants to walk without a limp when he’s 50. Yeah, it’s a foolish mind-set, but it’s what makes us respect great athletes.
“Either I can play or I can’t, regardless of what the MRI says,” Pierce stated after sharing with the media that he’s not interested in having an MRI before game two. “We can figure this out after the season.”
Maybe the Celtics want this more than the Lakers. I was shocked by Boston’s double-digit victory Thursday. The Celtics controlled the second half, dominated the boards and just seemed far more energized and physical than the more-rested Lakers.
And the day after, they came across as the team ready for another war and unwilling to laugh about what was obviously hysterical.
“It was crazy to me because I’ve never been carried off the court,” Pierce said. “I have to be close to death or blood everywhere for me to get carried off. It was sort of embarrassing, truthfully. I should have just laid there for five more minutes and then got up. Hopefully, it won’t happen again. If I get carried off the next time, there’s no way I’m going to come back.”
I’m not so sure about that.