Is Pierce the NBA’s Most Complete Player?

By:  Allen Moll
From: http://thehoopdoctors.com/

When all is said and done and Boston Celtics great Paul Pierce finally does hang it up sometime in the future, there’s no doubting that his #34 jersey will join the many other Celtic greats like Bill Russell, John Havlicek, and Larry Bird up in the rafters at TD Garden. But as this truly all time great of the game has been overshadowed throughout his career by other high profile superstars during his tenure like Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, many NBA players when asked who the hardest player to guard is, the answer more times than not is that of “The Truth.”

If you think about it, sure Lebron James is much more physical, Kevin Durant is a better shooter, Tracy McGrady was a more prolific scorer, and Kobe is well, a Top 10 scorer in NBA history. But one could argue that Pierce is the perfect combination of all 4 players as he possesses great handles, plays excellent defense, shoots daggers from behind the arc, has an excellent midrange game, and can dominate a game with the best of them.

While he is no longer a spring chicken at the tender age of 33, Paul still shows flashes of what has made him an 8 time All Star, 4 time All NBA selection, an NBA Finals MVP, and a 20,000 point scorer. Many fans don’t realize just how diverse a skill set Pierce has, all in a 6’8 and 235 lb frame. He towers over and overpowers most shooting guards yet possesses enough quickness, ball-handling, and maple moxey to get off his own shot against bigger front-court players.

Most deadly has been his almost patented spin move and step-back jumper which to this day still gets the best of and even infuriates even the league’s best defenders attempting to guard the future Hall of Famer. “The Truth” now plays more of a facilitator type role on the Celtics, averaging 18.3 ppg and providing whatever is needed alongside his star-studded cast including Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Shaquille O’Neal.

Apparently the now older Pierce’s game is still in full effect as his Celtics are once again the current #1 seed in the Eastern Conference with a gaudy 34-10 record, including a nearly unblemished 22-3 home mark. Surely the aging and prolific supporting cast have their eyes set on making their 3rd NBA Finals appearance in the past 4 years now that their mainstay in the middle Kendrick Perkins is back in the fold.
Check out this interesting video where current NBA players claim that Paul Pierce has the full “bag of tricks” and is nearly impossible to guard:


Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.  Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.

Shaq Visits Bar from “Cheers” and Sings

By: Dr. J-Water
From: http://thehoopdoctors.com/

We’ve got to give a big shout out to Jimmy Traina at Sports Ilustrated’s Extra Mustard Hot Clicks for posting this great video of the Big Diesel making a visit to the “Cheers” bar in Boston. Shaq even made a point of attempting to sing the theme song to the TV Show ‘Cheers’, although it seems he didn’t know the lyrics as well as he thought he did…

Shaq has been making all sorts of hilarious appearances lately at the sights in Boston. First it was crashing a wedding at the Four Seasons, then it was playing statue at Harvard, then he dressed up with his teammates for Halloween, now Cheers….

Meet The Celtics Dancers

Why won’t you go away? da CELTICS!!

From:

Bam-bam: both Steph and Ray, despite their struggles, had some amo in the 4th.

Have you ever had something that didn’t go away? A rash? A stray cat? An ex-girlfriend/boyfriend? We’ve all had things that we didn’t want around stick around. The Celtics have been turning into the team that is long overdue. That won’t die. Everyone wants to know: why won’t you die? Why won’t you go away?

The rest of the post is speaking like a proud parent, so be fair warned…

In this stage of the playoffs, I love the Celtics’ personality– we are the team that won’t die or go away. We keep fighting. And keep fighting. It’s not pretty, but they are winning.

The Celtics have no business being in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. If the Bulls had taken Game 7 in the first round, people in Boston would have been upset, frustrated, and wishing they could play Back to the Future: can we unhurt KG? Heck, can we just unhurt Powe for some additional front-court help and some offensive punch from the bench? But, people would have understood why Chicago beat us: they are younger, more athletic, and much healthier (even though they were down Deng, KG’s shoes are bigger to fill– it’s like saying Deng wears a size 3 and KG wears a size 33). Chicago really should have beat us. All of those OT games, all of those games that were decided by 3 points or less… they could have gone either way.

We have no business winning and no business being where we are: up 3-2 in the Eastern semis. But, we are winning… and winning with the team that we have.

LOOK AT OUR TEAM! With our front-court absolutely decimated, we are counting on Scal and second year Baby to step up and fill the shoes of veteran players. it is an absolute joy to see the Celts steal, literally STEAL, games away from opponents. This is thievery at its best.

Doc is on fire the last 2 games, while Stan van Gundy should be fired.

We are making the best of what we have, and 4 things really stood out last night to make the comeback complete:

• DOC – Doc! He out-coached STANVANGUNDY for the last 2 nights. Steph was inserted at the right time and kept in for the right amount of time. By the time Rondo came back to help the team close out the game, Rondo had the energy to be a lock down defender and see the game to make better decisions. His players didn’t have it for 3.5 quarters, but managed to keep it close enough. Reggie Miller made a great point last night to contrast the coaches: Doc was able to get the ball into the hands of Ray Allen when the foul-fest began, while SVG couldn’t draw up anything effective enough and had to settle with Dwight Howard getting the ball. I’d like to add to this point: Doc prepped his team beforehand in a previous timeout, while SVG had a timeout and still couldn’t make it happen. And SVG ran out of timeouts.
• 

  Steph taking an AND1 on Dwight for an important 3-point play (referencing the fact that Steph helped start the original low cost shoe AND1 in the 90s).

  STEPH – He punched in 12 points in like 7 minutes. For everyone that said Steph would win us a game in the playoffs and stuck by it… Kudos to you. Steph scored when no one else could score and help the Celts trade buckets before our defense could resemble an actual defense.

• BABY – Baby’s growing up. Very quickly. Right before our eyes. 22 points (8-16), 7 rebounds, and stayed out of foul trouble. Oh yeah, he had a +16 +/- rating last night. His defense on Dwight when Perk was out was incredible– finally started playing with his size and it was great to see. Baby baby!
• FREE THROWS – 21-21. 100%. Clutch.

This is a memorable team who has shown that statistics and pundits don’t understand the importance the fight and attitude of a team, especially a championship team. Chicago had more talent than us. Orlando has more talent than us. But we have veteran guys who can play under playoff pressure. They are battle-tested. We have grit, and we have attitude. We have a coach that might not be perfect, but is better than most in the league. Most of all, we have a team. We have a team that plays together and wants to win together. We have a team that just won’t go away.

Too good to pass up this caption: Big Baby emerges (from the womb) to be a critical part of the Celts last 2 wins against ORL. Gross. I know.

Everyone counted us out after Game 1 of the CHI series. Everyone counted us out after Game 3 of the ORL series. Everyone is already counting us out if we make it to the Eastern Conference Finals to see Lebron and his crew. I like being the underdogs. I like when our backs are against the wall.

This is when the ’08-’09 Celts respond.
People can keep telling us that we won’t win, but know that we won’t go away.

Endnote • Dwight has publically denounced the coaching staff- not a good sign. The players are pissed. SVGundy is pissed. Everyone is pissed. But the reality is that they are all to blame. Dwight is over-rated and being shutdown by Perk and Baby. SVGundy only read the Cliff Notes version of “NBA coaching for dummies and fatties.” No one on the Magic can be trusted to take over in the 4th quarter. Look at their last 3 possessions of last night’s game… This team is self-imploding, but I still give them game 6 in Orlando and the Celts come home to finish it off in 7.

Celts stand tall, roll Wiz for club-record start

Enlarge By Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP Left to right: Rajon Rondo, Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Leon Powe stand at the Celtics bench during the closing moments of Thursday's 34-point victory in Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At 21-2, the Boston Celtics of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen are off to the best 23-game start in the franchise's storied history.

Even Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Bob Cousy never were this good this early.

Allen and Pierce scored 22 points apiece, Garnett nearly had a triple-double, and the Celtics beat the Washington Wizards 122-88 on Thursday night for the NBA champions' 13th consecutive victory overall and ninth in a row on the road.

GAME REPORT: Celtics 122, Wizards 88

NBA INSIDER: Howard leads All-Star voting

"I've been a big fan of history," Garnett said. "To establish ourselves in that history that's so enriched with culture and prestige and tradition is a great thing."

He finished with 11 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in three quarters.

Boston's winning streak is its longest since a 14-game run in 1985-86.

The Celtics opened 20-2 last season and in the 1963-64 season.

Caron Butler scored 19 points for the last-place Wizards, who matched their franchise's slowest start, dropping to 4-16 for the first time since the 1966-67 Baltimore Bullets.

"You saw the best team in the league," Wizards interim coach Ed Tapscott said. "And in case you weren't watching, it wasn't us. It was them."

The Celtics knew what they were playing for. Twice before, including last season, Boston went 20-2 before losing Game No. 23.

"It's always great to be part of a team that's potentially mentioned as one of the franchise's best," Allen said.

Boston had its most lopsided victory of the season — just as one might expect from a matchup between the reigning champions, who also boast the league's best record, and the woeful Wizards, who have the Eastern Conference's worst mark.

Going into the game, the only thing that might have given Boston pause, and Washington hope, was what happened when these clubs played each other last season: The Wizards took three of four encounters.

"They had our number last year," Allen said, "and we remember that."

Indeed, Celtics coach Doc Rivers said one of his players read something said by a member of the Wizards that drew his team's attention.

Rivers heard his players talking about that before the game.

"It doesn't take them much. I swear they, like, search the newspapers to find something," Rivers said. "I didn't need to give a rah-rah speech."

Washington, though, actually led 12-11 about 4½ minutes in, on a 9-foot floater by Antawn Jamison.

That's when Allen — and Boston — got in gear. He completed a four-point play to start a 19-5 run that essentially decided matters, putting the visitors ahead 30-17 with about 2½ minutes left in the first quarter.

Allen scored 13 points in the first quarter with four 3s, combining with Pierce's 10 points to outscore the Wizards all by themselves: The period ended with the Celtics ahead 36-21.

"Just wide open," Allen said.

Washington never got closer than 10 points the rest of the way, trailing by more than 20 for most of the second quarter, which ended with the Celtics up 63-39.

"We're sick of it," Washington guard Juan Dixon said. "We've got to start taking things personal, man."

Clearly, this season's Wizards resemble in no way last season's Wizards.

And what about the Celtics? Are they better than a year ago?

"We don't know yet. That question is yet to be found out," Pierce said. "It's just only a quarter of the season over with. Ask me April 18, and I'll give you a better answer."

That, of course, is the day the playoffs begin.

Notes: Garnett laughed off a postgame question about the white sleeve — instead of his customary black one — on his right leg. "It's Washington — very fashionable, savvy city. I thought, 'Why not switch it up from black to white?"' he said. "Just because I've got a wrap on something — I've got wraps in places that y'all don't even see." Then, as Garnett walked out of the locker room, he lifted up the bottom of his left jeans leg to show some sort of white covering on that calf. ... Boston's previous biggest margin of victory this season had been 24. ... Rivers put in the players at the end of his bench for most of the fourth quarter, and what was left of the sellout crowd of 20,173 kept chanting reserve forward Brian Scalabrine's last name, apparently hoping to see him score, or at least shoot. He put up his one and only attempt with 3 seconds left — and it was blocked.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.