Vintage Paul Pierce Is Delightful To The Eyes

If you have watched Paul Pierce throughout his tenure in Boston then you know by now that this guy is one hell of a scorer. Yes he does have his bad games, and his bad stretches for that matter, but when he is on there are very few guys in the league I would rather have with the ball in their hands. No he isn’t Kobe, no he isn’t Lebron, but he has proved on multiple occasions that he can go head to head with these upper echelon players.

This season has not exactly been what you would call a career year for the man we like to call “The Truth”. He has battled injuries all season ranging from a thumb injury to what was thought at one time to be a serious knee injury. Through all of this Pierce has struggled to become the consistant scorer that we have seen him be in the past. He is on pace for a career year from behind the arc, but we really haven’t seen what I like to call “Vintage Paul Pierce”.

I’m pretty sure you know what I mean when I say “Vintage Paul Pierce”. I’m talking about that step back jumper that we have seen so many times in the past, I’m talking about the Paul Pierce that explodes to the basket for a fancy “and one”, and last but not least I’m talking about that Paul Pierce that has the ability to be the difference in a game.

Walking into the Garden last night I made a comment to my good friend KWAPT, and to be honest I didn’t expect it to come true. I said to him, “I would really like to see Paul Pierce have a hell of a game tonight”, he agreed but deep down with injuries and everything considered I don’t think either of us expected him to have a night like he did.

Last night Paul Pierce came out onto the parquet floor determined to play as hard as he could and help this team get back on the right track. To say that he did this would be an understatement. One thing the Celtics have been lacking is a leader, more specifically a scoring leader. Last night Pierce took care of this by dropping 27 points (his most since January 29th) on 9-13 shooting.

Yes the 27 point performance is impressive, but how he did it was delightful to the eyes of everyone watching him. Not only was he proving why he is the three point champion, he was showing us glimpses of the Paul Pierce that Celtics fans have come to know and love. Instead of hearing clanks off the back of the rim on his well known step back, all you could hear was “swishhhhhh”. Instead of driving the lane and putting up a loop-Te-do shot he was attacking the basket and scoring, or getting to the line (where he went 5-5).

If this is the Paul Pierce we are going to see come playoff time you might as well start the process of producing banner eighteen, assuming he gets some help. Now I’m not trying to get too excited about this because he is still coming off an injury, but if he can use this game as a momentum boost then opposing teams might need to start thinking about changing up their strategies a little.

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