Pierce, Wallace to play
Typically silent before games, Rasheed Wallace declared himself ready to play by screaming, “I’m back” to a crowd of reporters in the Celtics locker room. Paul Pierce confirmed his playing status by walking through the locker room in uniform.
Doc Rivers confirmed both players will start tonight vs. the Mavericks.
“He’s good,” Rivers said of Pierce, who bumped his knee in practice yesterday. “Just a ding. We still have to get it stronger, obviously, and that’s going to take time. But he’s good…It looked bad, obviously, but he’s fine.”
On Wallace, Rivers said, “It’s big. We need him obviously tonight against Dirk. I don’t know if this is the perfect game for him to come back … that’s a tall order for him. But that’s the order we have.”
On facing Nowitzki, Rivers said, “He’s rare. He’s a mobile five. I don’t know that there’s ever been a player like Dirk, honestly. We’ve had seven-footers who can shoot, we’ve had seven-footers who can pass. But there’s been none that can do all of them.
“They’re running plays for him that teams run for Ray Allen and Reggie Miller, double and triple screens. You just haven’t seen that.”
On whether he’d rather have Nowitzki or fellow 1998 NBA draft product Pierce, Rivers said, “I like the guy we have, don’t you?”
— Shenanigans ensued in the locker room before tonight’s game as Glen Davis interrupted a Ray Allen interview with what he called a Viking scream. Rasheed Wallace joined in, leaving the soft-spoken Allen to pause for a minute or two before continuing his talk with reporters.
The incident showed that the Celtics may have a little more energy after three full days without a game. Allen, however, said the team was never tired.
“I wasn’t tired,” said Allen. “I can’t say that I feel any different. I still feel good. Not having played for three days pretty much doesn’t make it any different.”
— Former Celtic Stephon Marbury has agreed to join the Chinese Basketball Association’s Shanxi club, according to ESPN.com. Marbury has not played since his contract with the Celtics ended after last season.
“I think that he can be successful over there,” said Ray Allen. “If he goes over there and just focuses on basketball and playing that. When he was here it was clear he had a lot of basketball left in him. I believe he’ll be successful over there. I don’t think his time in the league is done if he goes over there and shows he is who he has proved to be as an athlete and a player.”
“I can’t wait to document this journey for the world to see,” Marbury posted on Twitter this evening. “Going to another country to play ball is something that I wanted to do.
“I’m excited about the decision that I have made as this will be another chapter in my life where I will share my passion for life and bball.”
Marbury’s public Twitter comments and live, streaming video this summer put him in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons and led many to question his mental stability.
“I don’t think that the web broadcast helped his cause at all,” said Rivers. “I think he’s going over there to prove that he could play.”
Did the Celtics entertain signing Marbury again?
“Not really,” said Rivers. “I think we had him for the right amount of time. I thought if he had come back he would have wanted to play more minutes, which I wouldn’t have blamed him.”
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