Paul Pierce has spent this week illustrating exactly how it feels to attempt a game-winning buzzer-beater in an NBA game.
On Monday, Pierce shared the story of his most painful miss, which came in a 2000 loss to the Toronto Raptors during the formative years of his Boston Celtics career. His Tuesday column for The Players’ Tribune was a bit more upbeat.
In the latter, Pierce described in detail what he considers his favorite game-winner. And somewhat surprisingly for a player with so many memorable playoff performances under his belt, this shot came not in late spring, but a mere month into the 2010 season.
“The game occurred in December, but it might as well have been May,” Pierce wrote. “It was a playoff atmosphere.”
The game was a matchup between the Big Three-era Celtics and one of their Atlantic Division rivals, the New York Knicks. Those Knicks, as Pierce points out, were far from the hot mess they are today and four months later would snap a six-year playoff drought.
The shot was vintage Pierce — a step-back jumper over Knicks big man Amar’e Stoudemire with 0.4 seconds remaining that gave the Celtics a 118-116 win at Madison Square Garden.
“Hitting a big shot on the road is especially satisfying because of the opposing fans reactions,” Pierce wrote. “The shock. The disbelief. So many people in New York tell me, ‘I hate you, but I love you.’ And I get it. I feel the same way about them.”
Perhaps more memorable than the shot itself was Pierce’s celebration, which involved him embarking on a victory lap around the court — flipping teammate Nate Robinson over his back in the process — before taking a bow at mid-court.
“Spike Lee didn’t care for it,” Pierce said, referring to the filmmaker and diehard Knicks fan.
That likely was Lee’s standard reaction whenever the Celtics and Knicks played during that 2010-11 season. Boston won all eight meetings, including a sweep in their first-round playoff series.
GIF via The Players’ Tribune
