For Celtics, It's Game Won

[Woodmonkey]

Pierce Returns From Injury Scare to Lead Late Rally

BOSTON, June 5 -- At one end of the floor, Boston Celtics forward P.J. Brown missed a jumper, and Rajon Rondo missed a rebound tip near the basket. On the other end, few seemed to notice or care. Fans at TD Banknorth Garden started rising from their seats and applauding the only occurrence that mattered for their championship hopes: Paul Pierce was walking, better yet bouncing, better still, about to return to the game.

Only a few minutes before, Pierce couldn't even walk off the floor under his own power, after a nasty collision with teammate Kendrick Perkins. He made a tearful exit on the arms of teammates Brian Scalabrine and Tony Allen.

When Pierce finally made his way back to the sideline midway in the third quarter, wearing a black brace on his knee, he patted teammate Tony Allen on the chest. "He told me, 'I'm back, let's ride,' " Allen said.

Pierce scored 11 of his 22 points in the final 17 minutes, lifting the Celtics to a 98-88 win over the Los Angeles Lakers for a 1-0 lead in the NBA Finals. In doing so, he added another chapter to the 11th installment of this storied rivalry.

"He was walking, he was up on his own strength, and he rejuvenated us to the point that he gave us life," said Celtics forward Kevin Garnett, who had game highs with 24 points and 13 rebounds.

Garnett gave the Celtics a lift of his own as Boston finally kept the Lakers and league most valuable player Kobe Bryant at bay with a forceful dunk of a James Posey miss with 90 seconds left. The basket gave Boston an eight-point lead, and went on a long way in fulfilling the fans' ongoing chants "Beat L.A.!"

Bryant also scored 24 points, but he didn't have many easy or uncontested looks. He missed 17 of his 26 field goal attempts, as the Celtics, and their top ranked defense, held the Lakers to just 15 points in the fourth quarter.

The Lakers are 1-2 this postseason when they fail to score at least 90 points.

"I had some great looks," Bryant said. "They just didn't stay down. It was just pile it in with the other bad games I've had and flush it."

Pierce, the longest tenured Celtic and in his 10th season, had always wanted to lead Boston back to the Finals. But after the team suffered through a miserable 24-win campaign last season, Pierce thought he was going to be traded until the Celtics landed Garnett and Ray Allen in offseason deals.

The Celtics pulled off the greatest turnaround in NBA history, and finally brought the Finals to this city for the first time in 21 years -- a drought so long that Lakers center Andrew Bynum hadn't been born yet. But in Pierce's long-awaited Finals debut got off to an inauspicious start, as he picked up three fouls in the first half and had to sit while his team turned a five-point lead into a five-point deficit at the break.

Pierce quickly got the Celtics going in the second half, as he scored the first six points of the third quarter, the last of which came on an improbable four-point play. Pierce pump faked to get Vladimir Radmanovic off his feet to draw a foul, then banked a three-pointer from the right elbow extended to give the Celtics a 52-51 lead.

Bryant brought back his team and gave it a 62-58 lead with a baseline jumper over Pierce with 6:52 remaining in the third. When Pierce landed, Perkins stepped on Pierce's foot and Pierce twisted his leg before falling. Pierce was writhing on the floor in pain, grabbing his left knee. Fans starting chanting, "Let's go Paul."

Pierce tried but couldn't stand up. Scalabrine and Tony Allen carried Pierce toward the locker room, as Pierce covered his face, seemingly rubbing away tears.

"I was like, man, it can't be over like this," Pierce said. "I think God just sent this angel down and said, 'Hey, you're going to be all right. You need to get out there. Show them what you've got.' "

He came back, in a scene reminiscent of former New York Knick Willis Reed's triumphant comeback against the Lakers in 1970, dancing side-to-side and the sellout crowd went wild. Some even chanted Reed's name. They got especially loud when Pierce nailed back-to-back three-pointers to give the Celtics a 75-71 lead.

"Guys can break a shoelace and go out. The pants break down, drawstrings fall apart. You don't know what happens to guys," Lakers Coach Phil Jackson said about Pierce's injury. "Pierce was back on the floor in three minutes, so he wasn't that long out of the game. He came back and hit two threes. I think that was a big momentum change in the game."

"It's been a long wait," Celtics Coach Doc Rivers said of Pierce. "I don't think he wants to get here and then sit on the sidelines. A guy grabs his knee, you know, there's no good thoughts. We could have easily felt sorry for ourselves. Obviously, him coming back lifted us up."

The Source