It was a good game. This 4th quarter has been sloppy.

Shot clock violation by Cassell

Allen dribbles it off his foot.

Both teams are missing easy shots.

the celtics can't win this series because if they do, they will all get rings...and this'll happen when cassell gets his ring...

man oh man, what a put back by Garnett

ugh, I hate how they stretch the series out. Game 2 should be on Saturday, not on Sunday.

It sucks that the NBA Finals are being stretched out, but let's not forget who's REALLY calling the shots. It's not the NBA, the Celtics or the Lakers. It's ABC Sports, or is it "ESPN on ABC"? Remember, the TV networks call the shots regarding the schedule, and ABC doesn't want to pre-empt some of their more popular shows, even if they're now in reruns again in this wretched season due to the Writers' Strike... They've got a lot of money invested in this series, and ABC needs a long series after literally no one bothered to watch the Spurs school LeBron James & the Cavaliers last June...

I'm guessing you've never had a serious injury scare while playing a sport. I have and I thought I was on the way to the emergency room when it happened.

If a hockey player had done the same thing with a knee injury, he would be applauded for his courage.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

No. If a hockey player would have done what Pierce did we would have never known. He would have never broken stride.

I sprained my knee once. When I did it I thought it was an ACL. I was in college. I was drunk and stumbled out of the bar. Fell and twisted my knee. I limped a half a mile back to my dorm, while drunk, with a bad knee. I kept drinking once I go back to the dorm. Now that's courage. I'm an American hero. Doctor told me it was a bad knee sprain the next day.

You are a warrior

It is almost impossible for an injury like Pierce had while playing hockey. Little to no jumping is involved which is what is required for that kind of injury. It's not as if he sprained his ankle and then limped off. He probably was on the verge of rupturing his knee, but for whatever reason it held together. It still hurts like hell, but the ligaments stay intact. He was probably millimeters away from being out 4-6 months.

Hockey players are tough, but you can't compare breaking your nose with nearly blowing out your knee. That would be as crazy as saying that NFL players, who are willing to play with a cast and a broken arm, are tougher than NHL players because a broken arm makes an NHL player sit the bench, but I've seen plenty of NFL players play with a cast on their arms.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I forgot to mention it was January. -10 degrees. I almost got frost bite too. Man, I wish a camera would have filmed me that day. I was at my finest. Detemination. I was all alone. Nobody helped me.

At least you remember how you hurt yourself. Nothing is worse than waking up the next morning and realizing that you didn't realize you hurt yourself. No blackout, but enough liquid courage in your veins to not realize that you just messed up your body.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Pierce was bouncing around like a bunny after he came back.

Look, I know people like this shit. They want to believe it was great and heroic. Fine. Believe what you want. I'm not falling for it.

He did no damage. No one will doubt that.

It didn't seem that way when it happened. You don't have to mess up your knee in order to get a pretty terrible pain there.

I don't think it's heroic. I just don't think that he decieded to fake an injury in order to build drama. It probably hurt like hell and he thought he had done some major damage. It turned out that the ligaments in his knee avoided major damage. I'm not going to call him a pussy, especially because some hockey player was able to play with an injury to a non-essential bone for movement. You don't use your nose in hockey. You use your knees in basketball.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

All I'm saying is I'll bet somebody, on some occasion, in the NBA, did exactly what Pierce did and didn't react that way.

That player probably limped to the bench. Got wrapped up and went back in the game.

I won't argue with that, but they may not have gotten the same pain reaction. It is clear that he did no damage, but he probably came very close to snapping a ligament. If your pain receptor decides to fire, it will feel just as bad as if you did snap it. I understand completely if you don't consider him a hero for his triumphant return, but to call him a pussy for thinking it was broken is a little over the top.

Comparing it to a broken nose, which is not an essential bone in hockey, also is unfair in my opinion.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Rick, I've realized our common ground is the NBA. I almost always agree with what you think on it. Thats good, considering we couldnt disagree more on the rest of any topic.

Props to the Celts. Showed much heart and determination today. I now think they are capable of winning the series, while at the same time not be surprised if they lost in 5 games. Ray Allen played super-exceptional defense on Kobe when guarding him. Jesus came through tonight.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Man, ESPN is doing it however. They are making this into something heroic. Wilbon, a guy I respect, is doing it to. I know they are trying to sell this series. It's on ABC. They have to.

Everybody trys to create that Roy Hobbs moment where he walks to the plate, while bleeding, and gets the game winning homer. ESPN does it even when it's not there.

Pierce played good. Just report that. He wasn't hurt.

I'm crying now just reading this debate about how people feel when they sprain a knee.

you obviously don't watch or read enough wilbon to still respect him at all...

Really? He seems like one of the few down to earth ESPN personalities that routinely rails against the east coast bias, the pop culture influence now on ESPN, and the sensationalizing of stories. He's one of the few ESPN personalities I really, really like.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Pussy

don't be fooled by that. he sensationalizes better than anyone, and tries to mask it with "honesty".

and he doesn't seem to mind being ESPN'S race card most of the time either.

i used to like him until i started reading his stuff and listening to him on a more regular basis. then i saw that he's no different from any other ESPN clone.

Really? I feel the complete opposite. I only watch him on PTI, but he comes off as very honest and very rarely uses the race card on that show from what I've seen. Having nothing to do with race, him and Adande are my favorite personalities on ESPN. I just never feel like they play the race card, or sensationalize at all. Out of all the ESPN guys, they are the only two I think would be cool to go have a beer and watch a game with.

Irrelevant to the above topic, Pierce and the Celtics could be in trouble next game.

After the game, Pierce was walking with a pronounced limp as he exited the postgame interview room and headed back to the locker room, but some 45 minutes later the injury was clearly bothering him more.

As he walked to his car, Pierce was still wearing his warm-ups. The snaps along the right side were hanging open, revealing a wrapping of several ace bandages from the bottom of his calf to the top of his thigh, an additional layer of white tape wrapped around the lower half of his hamstring, ending just above his knee.

Pierce's feet moved no more than 12 inches with each step, and as you watched him begin to navigate the four flights of stairs from the locker room level to the players' parking lot, you couldn't help but wonder exactly how much adrenalin had fueled his comeback. The knee injury could also keep him out of Game 2 or, at the very least, reduce his effectiveness

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Oh great!!! Here we go. Now the injury has gotton worse. He might not play. Oh no. It's a game time decision. Can he do this? Will he over come the pain?

Then he goes out and gets 40 while looking heatlthy and everybody is amazed.

Tough to ignore facts Beardown. Do yourself a favor and spend 15 minutes looking up Pierce and his history. He has no history whatsoever of faking injuries or attention-seeking. He's already on record as saying he's embarrassed he was carried off the court and the entire time was telling his doctors to let him try to walk off on his own power and they wouldnt let him. He came back with a brace on his knee and while he did in those two threes at the end of the quarter and played well, it was obvious he didnt have the same explosiveness he did before the injury. He's not the one trying to make excuses, this info is coming from reporters and the team itself.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

What about his face as he was being wheeled away in that chair? My God. You would have thought he had been shot and was bleeding to death.

Of course he's gonna say he's embarrased today. Why? Cuz he knows he looked like a complete bitch. He has to save face. He has to say he didn't want to be carried off.

Im guessing you've never had a 250 lb guy land on your knee, heard a big pop, have it get a bad sprain, then walk away smiling. Very easy for you to act like a tough Iron Man guy from a keyboard. Theres nothing in this guys history that says he's a pussy, and you're the only one I hear saying that. Not coincidentally, I havent really heard to talk about the NBA till now. Noone familiar with the league would call Pierce a pussy.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm not tough. Never have been. Never will be.

I've watched basketball since I was a kid. I've never seen a guy get carried off by two guys to a wheel chair, rolled to the locker room, only to sprint out to the court and play with no sign of injury.

The one thing to my credit is I predicted he wasn't hurt while he was in the wheel chair. It wasn't after the fact. I knew it was bullshit from the start.

no HE doesn't use the race card, ESPN uses HIM as THEIR race card. If you know what I'm sayin'. I just don't think Wilbon is as insightful as people give him credit for; to me he doesn't sound any different than most of the other people on ESPN.

HOW-EVAH, I do like PTI, and that's mainly because of the format. Kornheiser and Wilbon are very comfortable with each other, so the sensationalism is a bit curbed by their chemistry.

But when it's just him, especially in his columns, he just comes off typical. Not a bad writer, but just kind of predictable.

Just to let you know, there are very few people I like on ESPN--maybe I don't even like anyone...I just tolerate a few...like Van Pelt. Bob Ley is still stoic--it's almost like he's apart from all of them.

ESPN's just no fun anymore...

Yeah Im with you on that, except I dislike Van Pelt alot. I dont really like any ESPN people except Wilbon and Adanade. And sometimes they have LZ Granderson on, I like him too.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul