It appears that Pierce will start tonight after all.
It was being suggested that Pierce’s knee injury needed some time off. Well, Paul says that the past two days are time enough and he is feeling good enough to go.
Gary Washburn and Frank Dell’Apa report for Boston.com….
Pierce sat out most of Monday’s session with a left knee sprain, and the Celtics originally planned to keep him out of action yesterday. But Pierce said he had recovered from the injury, sustained late in the third quarter of Friday’s loss to Atlanta, and he worked out without a brace or tape on his leg.
Paul Pierce…
“I got a good response the last couple days of rest,’’ Pierce said. “I felt good about it and it went smooth. I went the whole practice and I felt really good about it. It was a slight sprain of the knee but I’m a fast healer and I feel good.
“I’m a little older, so I’m being smarter about things. If I didn’t feel I could go out there, I wouldn’t have done it, but I felt really good, my body responded well.”
So the captain demonstrates his grit once again. Sometimes I think we don’t appreciate how much of a ‘gamer’ Paul Pierce is.
Love knowing you can’t even keep him out of practices. That has to bode well for the team’s younger players.
Now if they can only get in sync and start playing less like boys and more like men, and stopping acting like they’re the new kids on the block maybe we will be able to beat the Jacks ‘Em Five….somebody stop me, quick.
Gary Washburn of the Globe reports that Kendrick Perkins says practices are still not great….
“I think our energy’s been high, [but] these past few practices haven’t been good, I don’t think,’’ Perkins said after yesterday’s workout. “They haven’t been our best practices. We’ve been turning over the ball, just being sloppy the last two practices.
“I thought as far as Doc and the coaching staff, they had the right game plan for practice. As a team, we haven’t had the perfect execution for practice. We just gotta get back on the right track.’’
If they don’t, they’ll get run over by another team that likes to push the ball, the Golden State Warriors (#1 in pace). The Nelsonettes meet the Beantown Ballers in a few hours to see who ends up having more work to do.
Young and athletic teams are a problem for the Celtics. Intimidating glares by Kevin Garnett just don’t seem to change things much either. Maybe they are too young to know that’s supposed to scare them. There is no substitute for outplaying a team to really intimidate them, I guess.
They hitch it up at 7:30 tonight.
I didn’t get to see the game, but looking at the box score it looks like ball movement was good, in that they had very balanced scoring. And they held Golden State to under 100, which is a start for their defensive renaissance.
Comment by Mauricio — November 18th, 2009 @ 11:50 pm
yes, things got better as the game went on. Rondo resurrected the team’s energy. Check out the recap, when you get a chance.
Keep hope alive!
Comment by Tom Halzack — November 19th, 2009 @ 8:14 am