Pierce toughs it out in loss
ORLANDO, Fla. — The hits keep coming for Paul Pierce.
The latest came with 7:30 left in the third quarter in tonight’s Celtics loss to the Magic in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Pierce took a hard foul from Magic center Dwight Howard and remained on the floor for almost a minute afterward, clutching his left shoulder. As Pierce writhed on the floor, the crowd at Amway Arena peppered him with boos. One glance around the arena revealed scattered signs questioning the toughness of the Celtics in general — and of Pierce in particular.
“I didn’t know that was legal,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said of Howard’s fouls in Game 5, including the one on Pierce. “But he’s doing what he should do.”
Pierce did what he does best too, hitting both free throws after the foul, but the treatment he received from Magic fans was another example that Pierce’s reputation is not quite whole, even during a series when his game is.
Pierce came into Game 5 as the Celtics’ leading scorer, with an average of 24.3 points per game in this year’s Conference Finals. Despite a poor showing by the Celtics as a whole, Pierce again came to play in Game 5, scoring 18 points and getting to the line 10 times. He made all 10 of his free throws.
And on a night when the Celtics were decimated by injuries, Pierce toughed out 41 minutes, staying on the floor long after the outcome of the game was in question and saving Kevin Garnett’s knees and Tony Allen’s banged-up ankle for Game 6.
“It doesn’t feel good to lose two in a row,” Pierce said after the game. “Obviously we’ve got to clean up some things.”
Pierce’s reputation hasn’t been quite as clean since Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals against the Lakers. Pierce went down with a knee injury in that game and was famously taken off the court in a wheelchair. Pierce’s return to the game a short time later — and his subsequent performance as Finals MVP — led many to question the severity of the injury and caused some to label Pierce as a drama queen.
(One sign at Amway Arena Wednesday night called the Celtics captain “RuPaul Pierce” after the celebrity drag queen.)
It didn’t matter that after Game 1 of those Finals, Pierce could be visibly seen hobbling down the steps of the makeshift podium for each of his press conferences after the first two games of that series. To opposing fans, it didn’t matter that Pierce was named MVP. And despite the fact that he’s been the best player for the Celtics in this year’s Eastern Conference Finals, Pierce can’t seem to shake that reputation among Magic fans that not all of his injuries are as serious as he makes them appear.
The injury Pierce suffered in the third quarter last night was, by his own characterization, a “stinger”. Pierce suffered the same injury in a game against San Antonio in March and was stung again in practice later that week. He did not miss any games with that injury.
Wednesday night, Pierce refused to blame Howard for his hard foul.
“I think that’s just playoff basketball,” said Pierce. “Both teams are getting hard fouls. That’s just part of the game. You’ve got to expect it.”
Howard fouled Pierce similarly in Game 2, the Celtics captain saying that night, “It was a good foul, a playoff foul. It didn’t warrant a anybody an ejection. When you get to the hole in the playoffs you expect hard fouls.”
But overshadowing that Game 2 foul — and Pierce’s measured response to it — was what someone claiming to be Pierce posted to Pierce’s official Twitter account (“Anybody got a broom?”) following Boston’s win over the Magic that night. Pierce denied being the author of that piece of trash talk, but with Howard having already been asked about it in the postgame press conference, the damage to Pierce’s reputation was done.
The Celtics are not done, and Pierce gets to return to the friendly confines of TD Garden for a Game 6 Friday night. At least at home, Pierce can focus on basketball and ignore the rest of the noise surrounding his game.
“We’ve got to get a game,” said Pierce. “We obviously don’t want to come back here.”
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