Paul Pierce has been a non-factor when it's mattered most in this series. In Game 1, he was ejected with seven minutes to play and he watched the ending on the TV in the visitors' locker room. In Game 2 he was on the floor, sure enough, but hampered by a strained Achilles, he wasn't able to be the Paul Pierce we've all come to expect.
Game 3 should be different. He's got his head back on his shoulders — no more ejections. And after three days to rest, his body is feeling pretty good.
Now it's time for some fourth-quarter magic from the Celtics' leading scorer.
"Good assessment," Pierce said sarcastically, as if it should go without saying. "Paul Pierce being in the game in the fourth quarter is always going to help the Celtics."
Setting aside the awkwardness of the third-person statement, Pierce is absolutely right. The Celtics are obviously an entirely different team with Pierce at his best down the stretch, and the Heat are lucky that through two games, they haven't yet seen that team.
Pierce was a monster in the Knicks series, averaging 22.3 points per game, including a ridiculous Game 3 with 38 points on 14-of-19 shooting, including 6-of-8 from 3-point range. The Celtics don't want to have their backs pushed to the wall on Saturday night at TD Garden, so they're hoping Pierce has another dominant Game 3 performance bottled up.
"I hope it makes a difference," coach Doc Rivers said on Friday. "And I think it will. I mean, he's our best scorer. We have to go to him more and get him involved.
"Obviously, it was very tough to get him involved at the end of Game 1. I couldn't think of a way, but I was trying. And then in Game 2 with the injury, you just didn't know."
Pierce obviously isn't 100 percent right now — although as the old cliche goes, no one is this time of year. He had to leave early in Game 2 with the Achilles injury, heading to the locker room to receive medical attention. When he came back later, he was a step slower.
He's taken the last few days to rest and treat the injury. The team is now describing it not as an Achilles — a dirty word these days considering the Shaquille O'Neal injury — but as "a left foot strain around the heel area." It's something he can play through, no doubt. He's been a warrior for this team countless times before.
"He's great," Rivers said of Pierce. "I always go by guys who never miss practices. It's amazing how many times he'll go down in a practice — he'll get hit, and I'm thinking practice is over for the most part. But then it takes five minutes, and he's right back up. He just likes basketball. There's people who love to play, and he's one of them."
Pierce had some time after Game 1 to get his composure back. He had time after Game 2 — too much of it, arguably — to rest his body. Now he's got to rally together a Celtics team that's down 2-0 for the first time in this era, and he's got to lead them to a win on Saturday night.
Step one is forgetting the past.
"There's nothing he can do about it," Rivers said. "He got ejected, and he didn't mean to get injured. I don't think he should put any undue pressure on himself.
"We're not going to win individually. We've got to do it as a group."
