When Paul Pierce tumbled to the floor last night during the second quarter and subsequently limped off the court with team doctors, Boston’s fragility — hell, every team’s fragility (see: Chicago Bulls) — was highlighted in neon yellow and paraded in front of a TNT national audience. If Pierce had not been able to return… well, I don’t really want to discuss it in detail, but the Celtics would not have improved.But Pierce did return, calmly sunk a couple more triples after halftime, ran into the tunnel after one of them to stir the crowd into insanity, and finished with an absurd 24 points on 10 of 13 shooting in fewer than 17 minutes.The craziest part is that Doc Rivers didn’t know Pierce would even play. The Truth tripped and fell during shootaround and his status wasn’t known until right before the game.“When I left shootaround, I probably thought he was not going to play,” Rivers said. “And Eddie (Lacerte) said, ‘Let’s see, let’s give it a try and see how he feels.’ I talke
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May 06, 2012
