BOSTON. Coming off a dramatic win Thursday night in which forward Paul Pierce made a miraculous recovery from a knee injury to lead his team to victory, the Boston Celtics today announced that they have added faith healer Jimmy Ray Embree to their training staff.
Embree: "Jesus--make this small forward walk again so he can come back and drain back-to-back 3 pointers!"
"Miracles can happen, but you don't want to count on them," said Celtics coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers, who is not a licensed physician. "Paul's comeback saved us, just the way a good Bible-thumping televangelist can save you."
"He can walk! Praise the Lord!"
Pierce injured his right knee in a collision with center Kendrick Perkins, and was carried off the court by teammates Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine and Dr. Brian McKeon, a team physician. "There's nothing I can do for him," McKeon said upon examining Pierce. "We'll have to put him down, like a racehorse."
"God wants you to spread the floor and create isolations for St. Paul!"
But Embree, an itinerant preacher who took a wrong exit leaving Atlanta and ended up at the TD Banknorth Garden when he was pulled into the Ted Williams Tunnel by the gravitational force of Boston's Big Dig, volunteered to minister to Pierce by "laying-on of hands", a faith-healing technique.
"Double-team Bryant--Gasol's no offensive creationist."
Lakers' coach Phil Jackson expressed skepticism over Pierce's injury, calling it a "pants malfunction" and a "broken drawstring" in a post-game interview. "People are comparing him to Willis Reed," Jackson said, referring to Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals in which his New York Knick teammate returned to action after a half-time heart transplant and vasectomy. "Compared to Willis, Pierce is a wuss."
Willis Reed, 1970 NBA Finals
But Pierce bristled at the suggestion. "I listen to rap, he listens to the Grateful Dead," Pierce said as he sat in the whirlpool. "You tell me who's a wuss."
Pierce said of the incident that he was "embarrassed, truthfully." I would be too if I had flopped an injury.
Pierce went on to add that he will wait til the end of the season for an MRI. I wonder why. An MRI would have revealed that he was flopping.
I'm actually glad Pierce did what he did. Initially, one would think that it was a good move. It fired up the crowd. It fired up his teammates. And Boston went on to capture Game One.
But what Pierce didn't realize was that it fired up the LAKERS more than it fired up his team.
The Celtics will not win a game the rest of the series.
At first I felt bad for Pierce when he went down. And then when he returned two minutes later and acted like he was the ish and nothing was wrong with his knee, I felt what the Lakers players probably felt inside at the time.
I hope Pierce gets knocked on his behind a few times on Sunday. He deserves it.
I'm a Celtics fan since the '70's, and am always leery of over-emotional play. Great to get the crowd into it, but you need something else on the road. Remember Pierce's last-second over-reaction ejection in the 2005 Pacers series? It's hard to imagine that happening to a Jo Jo White or Larry Bird.
Nice acting job my Paul ( Pillsbury Doughboy ) Pierce. And crying like a little girl. Please. You dont come back from a sprained knee and play without limping or showing pain. What a loser. Lakers in 6.
I remember that one. And some have also mentioned that Pierce being stabbed multiple times was also overexaggerated.
And then what about Pierce and his "gang signs"?
It's obvious the stunt Pierce is attempting to pull.
I will say it again.
Pierce has been underappreciated and underpublicized his entire career. Pierce is also perhaps being overshadowed by his own teammate, Kevin Garnett.
And Pierce, being from L.A, knows all about putting on a show. So what does he resort to?
Stunts. It's his desperate attempt to gain some recognition in this league so his name will appear in the archives of NBA lore. And what better way to pull off an act than in GAME ONE of the NBA FINALS at the GARDEN with their greatest rivals, the LAKERS, in town for the festivities.
Pierce is a friggin' joke. Knock him on his @-s-s.
What a crock of baloney. You really think that Pierce faked an injury. This is what he has been working for his entire professional life. At the point he went down, the game was very close. Do you really think he was going to fake and injury and get taken out of the game at such a time. Would he give the Lakers a chance to build a big lead. Come on, he has to have more ego than that. How was he to know that his teammates would hold the lead and build on it?
To think any player would fake an injury at such a time is silly. It is obvious you have never had a injury like he had. I have. When it first happened, I thought I had torn something in there, the pain was excruciating, and it scared the hell out of me. Within a few minutes, I was up and moving around, and all I had was a little soreness for a few days. But the pain and the fear was very real.
As for being under appreciated, yeah in his career perhaps, but in this playoff run, just about everyone has acknowledged that he has been "the man" not Garnet. If the Celtics win the series,and if he plays the way he has been playing, he will be the MVP. How much more recognition can he get? The idea that he has pulled some kind of stunt to get noticed is really a silly notion.
This whole incident has been blown way out of proportion. We see people go out of games all the time looking like they are badly injured, only to come back a few minutes later. It this was not the playoffs, no one would even be paying attention except to be saying they were glad it was not as bad as it appeared at first.
SPURCSE: "It is obvious you have never had a injury like he had"
First of all, you missed my comment to you on another blog.
You're misinformed my fellow Western Conference rival.
I've strained and torn my medial meniscus. 1990 to be exact. Against La Mirada High School.
Went up for a rebound, landed awkwardly, heard a pop in my left knee. Then it locked. I had 10 points in the first two minutes of the game. I went back down the court after the injury since no timeout was called and promptly hit a 12-footer while my left knee was locked and I jumped off one leg to nail the shot from the baseline.
Next thing you know, I take a trip to La Palma Medical Center and get an X-Ray. Nothing is revealed. A week later I get an MRI. Partial tear of the left medial meniscus.
I visit 5 orthopedic surgeons, two of which recommended arthroscopic knee surgery. The remaining doctors said it would heal. I contacted my uncle who's a doctor and he examined the MRI. He said there was an 80% of healing. So I let it heal.
I was out for five months before I could even begin to practice again. Had I gotten surgery I would've been out three months plus rehab.
I came back to play in the summer league and my hops were never the same. I was a 5-9 PG at the time, who could dunk before the injury. Martial Arts is what saved my knee from deteriorating, considering I never had surgery.
And whatever injury you had, if you never got an MRI and your knee never popped then it was not a strained meniscus. Because when you REALLY strain and tear you cartilage, you CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT play for a long period of time. You just can't. It's fact.
Your injury was likely a knee bump. Which is what happened to Pierce. He messed up by overdramatizing the event and said his knee "popped." He may have gotten hurt and bumped knees but all that extra stuff added in was a bunch of horse manure.
The reason you hear a pop is because your cartilage is right under the knee cap and when you strain or partially tear it, it causes friction with the knee cap thus resulting in the "pop" sound. At that point, your knee WILL lock. You don't just feel an excruciating pain and then get up and start moving around again. An excruciating pain is when you tear ligaments in the knee a la Shawn Livingston. That's excruciating pain.
In a meniscus related injury (Tim Duncan partially tore his and he was out for an extended period), what you feel is THROBBING pain, a tightness to where you are completely unable to flex your knee back and forth. The fact that Pierce was able to do this and come back three minutes later told us all we needed to know.
PAUL PIERCE FAKED IT. If you can't see how obvious it is, you're in complete denial because my Lakers beat your Spurs and you can't get over it. And right now, you're a Celtic fan for the next two weeks so I understand.
Pierce put on the best of show of the game! Willis Reed was injured. Paul was hurt. Both were great theater ... expect another miracle in these finals that Stern has been praying for ... what a show!
On the other hand Utah's Deron Williams got thrown down on his kiester at least twice and both times he went back to the locker room and twice he came back and played.
The man is a trooper.
J-Dizzle, I hate to inform you, but you can hear a popping sound in your joint without tearing anything. Hell you can pop your knuckle and hear a popping sound. And you can sustain an injury that is excruciating and scary and the pain fades away withing a very short time. Don't tell me lyou can't because it happened to me and as I said, it scared the hell out of me.
Obviously the injury you had was not that kind. It was a serious injury. I am not the one in denial, my friend. I think you are so angry that the Celtics embarrassed your Lakers that you are lashing out at something that is utterly silly.
And yes, I am pulling for the Celtics. But it is not because the Lakers beat the Spurs. I rooted for the Mavs when they beat the Spurs and played the Heat. I just feel that if I have to root for Kobe to win his fourth ring or Garnett, Allen, and Pierce to win their first, I will have to go with the Celtics. And I have never been a Garnett fan and cannot stand Allen.
I just hate these judgmental posts that seem to happen in every playoff series. Something that would never even get much attention just gets blown completely out of proportion and some poor guy gets condemned by outraged fans. It just seems so silly.
"The Celtics will not win a game the rest of the series."
I can't wait to watch another hater back-pedel out of that declaration. You Laker dorks are the most ridiculously deluded fans of all time. You guys have a genuine tradition of winning just like the Celtics but you've never had to suffer any down years since the Russel/West years to temper your pride with any humility. No other fans are so bitter that they refuse to acknowledge a superior athletic performance. I'm sure after the Celts win tonight you'll be back here grousing about how the refs were conspiring against Kobe or the ghost of Red was hexing Gasol or some other ####. Pathetic.
"they refuse to acknowledge a superior athletic performance"
A "superior performance"? Look, the Celtics have played great and I give them that. I give them credit for their defense, which has been superb especially on Kobe Bryant.
But for you to think that blowing a 24 pt lead in less than 8 minutes is "superior" is to overhype your team. Not to mention the Celtics have received the benefit of the doubt from officials all series long.
We'll see if you're still talkin' superiority once this series is tied up 2-2. And if I'm wrong and the Celtics finish off the Lakers in L.A., then that's when I'll believe Boston is a better team in a seven-game series.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
