Paul Pierce believes the Boston Celtics are going places.
The Celtics legend offered an ultra-bullish projection for the team’s chances of success Friday night, telling NBC Sports Boston’s Abby Chin he believes Jayson Tatum can lead the C’s into the latest stages of the NBA playoffs.
“Well Jayson Tatum is playing at an MVP level, and the Celtics are playing their best basketball,” Pierce said. “If they continue to play like this, I could see them in the Eastern Conference finals and possibly the (NBA) Finals.”
Pierce previously has taken heat for some outlandish NBA takes, but this one doesn’t seem so far-fetched, given how well Boston is playing. He was on hand at TD Garden on Friday to watch the Celtics beat the Pistons, with the result improving Boston’s record in its last 21 games to 18-3 and closing the C’s gap on the Eastern Conference-leading Miami Heat to just four games.
Pierce in November told Sports Illustrated’s “The Crossover NBA Show with Chris Mannix and Howard Beck,” the Celtics didn’t lack the talent to compete for Eastern Conference supremacy but needed time to develop the right chemistry under first-year head coach Ime Udoka.
That has happened before the NBA community’s eyes over the last two months.
“The Celtics went from 3 games under .500 to 14 games over .500 in a matter of 2 months,” Celtics.com’s Taylor Snow wrote in a tweet.
Having watched the latest notch in Boston’s dramatic turnaround in-person, Pierce was ready and willing to speak his truth about these Celtics.
