Pierce showed guts, but will he survive Finals?
BOSTON -- Not exactly the sight you want to see in the Game 1 of the NBA Finals: Paul Pierce, Boston's team captain, being rolled out of the arena in a wheelchair with a strained meniscus.
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| Imagine the fear in Boston fans when Paul Pierce is carried off in the third quarter. (AP) |
Not long after that terrifying moment, Perkins himself limped down the court with an injured ankle and took himself out of the contest, later telling Doc Rivers he was at 60 percent. Suddenly, the game was turning into the guards versus the Mean Machine.
"When a guy grabs his knee, there are obviously no good thoughts," Rivers said of Pierce.
"All I felt was pain when I grabbed it," Pierce explained. "I thought I tore something. Usually when I go down I get right back up."
"I thought that was it."
It looked like Pierce was badly hurt and wouldn't return. Yet Pierce reemerged just several minutes later, walking tall into the game out of the darkened tunnel the way the Stones enter Wembley. The only thing missing was the Hans Zimmer soundtrack and Denzel Washington playing Rivers.
"I was surprised Pierce returned," Ray Allen said. "The way he was carried off it seemed like he was done for the game and then he came back on the floor."
Pierce, showing tremendous guts -- though please hold off on the Willis Reed comparisons, don't get too crazy -- and would hit back-to-back 3-pointers in the third quarter.
Amazingly, in that third, just moments after it looked like his knee had exploded, Pierce had 15 points.
The crowd, scared out of their minds after watching Pierce get carried off, was no longer quiet. They were near riotous in their joy. Their hero was back.
It was an impressive moment for Pierce but it's entirely possible this might be the last we see of Pierce in the Finals. At the very least, his knee is going to be problematic.
The meniscus is vital for distributing weight and absorbing the large amounts of shock the knee takes particularly the knee of an NBA player.
