I can hear it now. All over the world where people are playing basketball and someone gets hurt, the comment, “Don’t bust a Paul Pierce!” will be forever immortalized. I saw game 1 of the NBA finals and thought the Lakers were actually doing really well until Paul Pierce thought he blew his knee out. His injury unfortunately was not severe at all. It was so insignificant that his over exaggerated agony of display of pain and then being carried off court is so much drama that no one on this side can deny. He was carried off the court by teammates and trainer to the entry hall then wheeled away in a wheel chair. He sat in the locker room for maybe 5 minutes and came back out.
Now that was an unbelievable return! Came back and made two threes which pretty much changed the tempo and final outcome of the game; especially with the arena’s fans intensity rising. I am sure Paul Pierce was in an insane amount of pain but was all that drama necessary? Was being carried off court necessary? Several blogs even noted that if indeed his knee was blown; wouldn’t being carried off cause more damage than good? Shouldn’t a wheel chair been immediately carted out?
None of that happened. Instead, you got the whole arena’s emotion full of gasp as if Pierce experienced a career ending injury to only comeback several minutes later to contribute at a high level. Not only is he not injured he is expected to start game 2. The Celtics staff even found it unnecessary to do an MRI or X-ray on the supposed injury. This is no Willis Reed moment. This is just a grown man in a lot of pain who thought more than there really was; sad to say but the way he got carried off the court is just pure comedy and an Oscar worthy performance. To tap that much emotion through the pain he felt to touch millions of fans.
In the end, I will just remember this as the day where if someone is lying or exaggerating as ‘busting a Paul Pierce.’
*Sidenote - Who was boxing out Kevin Garnett on the follow up put back dunk with 2 minutes to play? Paul Gasol? Any other Lakers? At such a crucial moment and you just do not protect your own backboard. Even if you didn’t get the rebound but prevented that put back dunk all would have been fine. The effort was just not there.
Here’s the clip:
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