The Celtics' captain had the ball for the team's final possession, and he knew they needed one last big shot. He was isolated at the top of the key with a chance to drive a dagger through the hearts of the visiting Blazers.
He was hot as wildfire. Ray Allen, standing in the corner, was cold as ice.
So Pierce did what anyone would do in that situation — he made the extra pass.
"I had Ray Allen wide open," he said. "For the game. It's a no-brainer. I'm going to give it to him every time."
Pierce was 9-for-11 from the field and 4-for-5 from 3-point range going into that final play, having carried the Celtics from start to near-finish with 28 points. Allen was 2-for-11 and couldn't buy a bucket. But with Wesley Matthews closing in on Pierce, and Allen open in the corner with Andre Miller slacking off of him, Allen was the man for the job. He stepped up, drained the corner trey, and put the finishing touches on a 99-95 Boston win.
"You do what you do," coach Doc Rivers said. "It's just trust. It really is. We talk about it all the time, and it works sometimes. That was a great example — Paul was covered, he saw an open guy, and he gave it to the open guy."
"They were playing zone, which was surprising to us," Allen explained. "And Paul, I saw him, he was kind of gathering himself a little bit, and I just got ready to take a shot. It was probably the best look I had all night."
He'd had a lot of bad ones. Allen was missing shots all night long — the Celtics were executing beautifully, setting picks and screens all night to get him good looks, and the shots just weren't falling. It was like the rims were taunting him — except for one particularly ugly shot in the second half, where the rims had nothing to do with it. A rare airball.
But he just kept at it.
"You guys have seen Ray over the years," Pierce said. "He's one of the great shooters of all time. And for me as a scorer, and knowing Ray, you always feel like that next one's going to go in. There's just something about clutch players, something that runs through their veins.
"When the game is on the line, you tend to forget about what's happened in the rest of the game. You focus in on that last play, on that last shot, and your concentration and focus goes to another level. And that's what you see from Ray year in and year out — when you need it most, he's going to deliver."
The sad thing is Allen's shot never should have been necessary. The game had looked like a runaway earlier in the fourth quarter — a Kevin Garnett bucket with 5:09 left had given them a 96-80 lead over a demoralized Blazers team, and we appeared headed for another uneventful double-digit Celtics win. But then the Blazers went off, with Miller, Matthews and Brandon Roy fueling a 15-0 run to close the gap to one.
The Celtics needed one insurance bucket to hold off the Blazers' rally. They needed Allen to comes through.
"It's unfortunate that we were in that predicament," Allen said. "The last five or six possessions, we didn't attack. We somewhat had an advantage with Glen [Davis] in the game and a small on him, but we were just passive. We had some good looks. But for me, I was just looking at the rim, and the ball just didn't want to fall for me. But I just kept being ready to take the next shot."
That's what the great ones do. They're always ready to be the hero — even when you least expect it.
