Apr 13, 2013; Orlando, FL, USA; Boston Celtics small forward Paul Pierce (34) during the first quarter at the Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The future of Paul Pierce as a Boston Celtic has come into question during the past few seasons, but none more than this year. It seems all but certain that Pierce will not be in a Celtics uniform next season.

With Pierce’s contract coming at $15.5 million next season, it wouldn’t be wise for the Celtics to keep that figure with the way his production has fallen.

Pierce seems to be positive that he’s going to have to move on next season–he’s already preparing to relocate according to various Celtics’ sources.

Today, an unlikely source reports that Paul Pierce will likely be bought out by the Boston Celtics and not traded. Bob Finnan, a Cleveland Cavaliers insider for the News-Herald, reported the news today.

Sources indicate Celtics director of basketball operations Danny Ainge will likely buy out forward Paul Pierce’s $15 million contract for next year ($5 million is guaranteed). If that happens, Grant should be first in line to try to acquire Pierce’s services. However, before anyone gets too giddy, Pierce will likely want to go to a serious contender. -Bob Finnan

We can only take that with a grain of salt coming from a Cavaliers reporter–still, we have to be aware of it. It doesn’t seem like the Celtics want Paul Pierce back so this could very well be the possible out.

However, just last week it was reported by Michael McNamara of the Bourbon Street Shots blog on ESPN’s Truehoop network reported that the Celtics and the New Orleans Pelicans were discussing an Eric Gordon and Paul Pierce trade. 

With that in mind, it has to be assumed that the Celtics are willing to buy Pierce’s contract out, but they would prefer to move him for something. After all, Pierce still does have value in this league. He is an expiring contract that won’t damage a non-contending team’s cap for the summer of 2014.

Pierce can also go to a contending team that is willing to spend money to win right now a la the Los Angeles Clippers or Memphis Grizzlies.

However, the talk that the Celtics are willing to buy his contract out diminishes Pierce’s trade value immensely. Since the team is willing to buy Pierce out, teams are going to wait until he hits the waiver wire to put a claim on him. The only incentive that a team would have to deal for Pierce is because they fear someone will lay a claim on him before they can.

This is a very difficult thing for most Celtics fans to go through. Breaking away from a great player and effectively ending an era in a team’s history is not an easy thing to do. Lets just hope that the Celtics and Pierce make this as civil as possible, no matter what happens.

Apr 5, 2013; Boston, MA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving (2) shoots the ball against Boston Celtics power forward Chris Wilcox (44) and point guard Avery Bradley (0) during the second half at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

The Boston Celtics lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but this is common when a team is missing its best two players–really, its best four. There’s really no positives coming from this loss in the thick of the playoff race, but Boston played well enough defensively against Kyrie Irving to not get blown out.

Kyrie Irving had one of the worst nights of his career last night against the Celtics. He only made 4-20 shots last night and scored 11 points because of the defense that the Celtics played last night.

When Irving had the ball in his hands, the Celtics were aggressively playing him with ice traps–also referred as downing the ball. When teams do this defensively, they create a sixth defender out of the boundaries of the floor. They’ll play the ball handler toward the sideline, baseline, or the halfcourt line in an effort to force a turnover or a bad shot.

Its an overall frustrating thing to ball handlers around the league. They’re hounded and forced to go into one area and if there teammates aren’t in the right position, they’ll have very little options. Kyrie Irving fell right into this trap when the Cavaliers faced the Celtics.

In the video below is a common ice trap. Notice how the defense plays Irving.

Once Irving comes down the floor and gets a screen to free him up going to the wing by Tristan Thompson, Brandon Bass switches onto him until Terrence Williams is able to fight through the screen. For extra help, Jeff Green is probing in the middle of the paint in case Irving tries to attack the rim.

Irving is forced to the baseline because he has no angle to get around Bass. Williams recovers and comes to help Bass and forces Irving to pick up his dribble. His teammates are in no position to come and get the ball and Irving throws an arid pass. There’s the turnover that the Celtics were looking for.

They were playing Irving like this all night and it had a residual effect on his play all night long. We’ll use this transition opportunity the Cavaliers had as an example. The Celtics force Irving into another difficult pass because of the threat of another ice trap along the sideline. Take a look at the video below.

In the video, you can see the Celtics defense communicating that they’re going to force Irving to hug the sideline and try to force him to dribble out of bounds. Irving sees this, and he has the right idea. The Celtics are doing their work early and so does he, unfortunately.

Irving is about to attempt a bounce pass from just pass half court all the way to the top of the key. This is a very tough angle to complete a pass at and very few point guards in the league can do so–Irving is not one of them. So the Celtics rush Irving into another turnover by forcing him to make a decision quickly and on the fly. Something that most of the point guards in the NBA are not able to do.

In this final video, we see that the Cavaliers have countered by not having Irving bring the ball up the floor. Instead, C.J Miles does so and he gives the ball to Irving. Take a look.

Irving gets the ball receives a screen from Tyler Zeller, but instead of attacking down the middle or making a pass, Irving goes back toward the sideline and ends up taking an awful shot that gets blocked by Avery Bradley.

The Celtics traps and angles of their defensive attack forced Irving into a lot of bad plays, bad decisions, and bad shots. Unfortunately, like Irving said, they had a great team win and came out on top. If Boston could play this type of defense with a full roster, they’d be one hell of a team to try to stop in late April.

Apr 5, 2013; Boston, MA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers power forward Tristan Thompson (front) drives to the hoop against Boston Celtics power forward Brandon Bass (back) during the first half at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

Boston had defeated the Cavaliers less than two weeks ago, and Cleveland (23-52) came in losers of 10 consecutive games, but that did not matter tonight. The Cavaliers topped the Celtics 97-91.

The Celtics (39-37) came in an undermanned team without Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. Both sat out due to ankle injuries.

Garnett’s absence was particularly felt in the paint, where Tristan Thompson dominated the Celtics. Thompson had a season-high in points and rebounds with 29 and 17. Thompson’s 17 rebounds helped account for the Cavaliers’ edge of 16 on the glass.

Without Pierce to help orchestrate the offense, Boston never got into any rythym. They shot just 40.4 percent from the floor, including a miserable six of 22 from the 3-point line.

The one bright spot for the Celtics offensively was Jeff Green. Green continued his trend of picking up the scoring slack left without Garnett, dropping 23 points tonight. Green also led the Celtics in rebounding with nine.

Also producing in Garnett’s absence has been Shavlik Randolph. Randolph contributed 16 points and seven rebounds off the bench. He was the only member of the bench in double-figures.

With the Celtics preparing for the playoffs, preventing injuries and gaining rest has become the top priority for Doc Rivers. The Celtics suffered a scare when Avery Bradley hurt his collar bone late in the game.

He was forced to go back into the locker room, but all initial reports indicate it is not serious. While Bradley’s offense has fallen off in the past few weeks, he still remains a defensive presence.

His defense helped keep Kyrie Irving in check for most of the night. Irving scored 16 points, but took 20 shots to do so.

The Celtics next play on Sunday against the Washington Wizards. Rivers pointed toward this as a likely return for Garnett. Boston now has five games left in the season.

The Celtics still remain two and a half games ahead of the Bucks for the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference.