Let every kid who picks up a Little League bat, dons Pop Warner shoulder pads or runs down a rec center basketball court take a minute this summer to consider Paul Pierce's career. In fact, there's a lesson here to be learned by anyone who will ever be part of any team over the next two generations.
When the Boston Celtics celebrated their championship victory on June 17 with unabashed boyish exuberance, it was hard to miss the mixture of disbelief and relief stamped onto Pierce's face. It was the first time most of the Celtics had ever experienced this level of success, but more than anyone else the team's captain personified the long, cold road back to glory for this franchise.
To finally achieve his goal, Pierce had to overcome the National Basketball Association's Future (Lebron James), Present (Kobe Bryant) and Past (the ghosts of Celtic greats from Cousy to Russell to Havliceck to Bird). And those might have been the easier obstacles.
Think about what Pierce had to do to win that ring. For a decade, the Celtics were His Team — for better or worse. He was the marquee player for an organization going nowhere. Finally, last year the Celtics lost more than twice as many games as they won, including a franchise-record 18 losses in a row. Pierce missed seven weeks with a foot injury. The team posted the second-worst record in the league and got rooked out of the coveted top two draft picks in the lottery. For Pierce, the only lower point of his time in Boston might have been the night in 2000 when he was stabbed 11 times in a nightclub brawl.
Then along came Kevin Garnett from Minnesota and Ray Allen from Seattle, two established superstars in their own right. For the first time in his pro career, Pierce was relegated from the spotlight.
There was no guarantee this experiment would work. How many times in various sports have star players been thrown together, only to find out in crunch time they were missing that defining championship chemistry? (See: Steinbrenner, George) But Pierce, sensing his best and perhaps last opportunity to be a winner, basically reinvented himself as a selfless teammate. Only then did he find The Truth.
See, his talent and desire to win had never been in question. But the flashes of genius he often put on display were sometimes tempered by a tendency to try to do it all himself. He clashed with coach Doc Rivers in the early years of their relationship and sometimes came across as churlish.
But with Garnett and Allen around to help score points, Pierce for the first time in his career made his defense a priority. He slimmed down so he could speed up, cover the floor better. He made more of an effort to dish the ball to teammates. Just two years after averaging nearly 27 points a game, Pierce averaged less than 20 this season. And the Celtics finished up with a league-best 66 wins, just one year after winning 24 — the biggest one-season turnaround in professional basketball history.
The other members of the Boston Three Party made similar sacrifices. Garnett, who for a decade could be counted on to average around 22 points a game, finished with less than 19 in 2007-2008 — but was voted the league's Defensive Player of the Year. This season marked the fist time since 1999 that Allen poured in fewer than 21 points per game, winding up with 17.4. While discussing a lineup featuring three of the most consistent scorers of their generation, almost every post-game analysis after the Finals revolved around the team's defensive prowess.
Pierce suffered through some hard years in Boston, and when he finally had the opportunity to perform on the Big Stage, he wanted to prove he belonged. He wanted to show that he was, as Shaquille O'Neal dubbed him long ago, "the mother!!!!!! Truth."
In Game 7 against the pesky Cleveland Cavaliers, Pierce locked into a memorable duel with Lebron James and led his team to victory with 41 points — the second-highest Game 7 total in Celtics history. In the Game 6 clincher over the tough Detroit Pistons — in Detroit — he scored a team-high 27 points.
But all that was just a dress rehearsal for Pierce's first appearance in the NBA Finals. In the first game against the Lakers, Pierce went down hard in the third quarter and had to be carried off the court. He was brought back to the dressing room in a wheelchair for an examination of his knee and you could almost see the crowd's championship hopes evaporating into the rafters to cling once again to banners from the past.
Minutes later, the captain sauntered up the tunnel to rejoin the game and the crowd went nuts. He promptly hit back-to-back three-pointers, scoring 15 points in that quarter while leading his team to the victory that essentially set the tone for the whole series. The scenario was so Hollywood you would've thought the setting was Tinseltown rather than Beantown.
I remember watching the scene at home and realizing at that moment we were seeing the emergence of New England's latest bona fide sports legend.
In Game Two, Pierce blocked a key three-point attempt in the final seconds to shut the door on the Lakers, nailed two clutch free throws down the wire and, oh yeah, scored 28 points. In Game Four, with the Lakers up by 24 and threatening to tie the series at two apiece, Pierce demanded the questionable privilege of covering Bryant, the Best Player on the Planet. "Give me Kobe,"
he told Rivers. Pierce proceeded to shut Bryant down, score a team-high 20 points, and lead the Celtics to the biggest comeback in Finals history.
Facing another huge deficit in Game Five, Pierce exploded for 38 points and eight assists, but also twice got his pocket picked by Kobe as the Lakers managed to steal the last game in Los Angeles. The matchup of Goliaths seemed poised to join the annals of Russell vs. Chamberlain and Bird vs. Magic.
But back in Boston, the Celtics made the showdown a mockery. And the Truth punched in for a working-class performance that defined this team once and for all. When his own shots failed to go in, he created opportunities for his teammates so THEY could score. He set picks, spread the ball around, disrupted Kobe's game after the Laker's hot start and notched nine assists in the first half alone.
When the final buzzer went off, Pierce had scored only 17 points — less than half as many as in the previous game — but the Celtics won by almost 40 against a team many had considered the favorite. Pierce was voted Most Valuable Player of the Finals, and there wasn't much doubt he would be. Now, finally, he's going to be getting the recognition that is his due.
But let's be clear about this — Paul Pierce didn't become a champion by being the best player on the court. He made it by doing everything his team needed to win.
