Paul Pierce: To Beat the Heat, the Boston Celtics Need Pierce to Keep Cool

Paul Pierce Ejected from Game 1 After Picking Up Two Technical Fouls in Fourth Quarter

For as poorly as they played on Sunday, the Boston Celtics did have a chance to beat the Miami Heat in Game 1 of their second-round series. Down just 12 points with eight minutes to go, a rally was definitely in the cards.

But that's when the wheels fell off. Paul Pierce picked up a technical foul after he took exception to a hard foul by James Jones, and he picked up another less than a minute later when he got in Dwyane Wade's face after setting a screen.

In the NBA, it's two strikes and you're out. Pierce walked off the court, and the Celtics would go on to lose the game 99-90.

 

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Personally, I don't think Pierce deserved to be hit with a second technical. Emotions tend to boil over in the playoffs, and I think he was the victim of a knee-jerk reaction on the part of referee Ed Malloy.

That said, there is a lesson for Pierce in all this, and it's a simple one:

Be cool.

Yes, emotions do boil over in the playoffs, but a veteran like Pierce should know that you need to find a way to bottle them up when you still have a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter. He's been in the league for a long time now, and his bad boy days should be long behind him.

In a perfect world, Pierce's ejection is already in the rearview mirror. The Celtics will take the floor in Game 2 with little to no memory of the fact that one of their captain's blew his stack a couple days earlier, and they will go out and even the series.

As we all know, the world is rarely so perfect. The chief fear with this situation is that it will linger. Will the refs have it out for Pierce? Will the Heat make it a priority to provoke him? Will Doc Rivers have to cut down Pierce's minutes knowing that he's a loose cannon who could go off any second?

The slippery slope goes on and on. The point is that both Pierce and the Celtics got a huge reality check on Sunday, and they can only afford three more of those before their season is over. If Pierce can't stay cool, the process will be expedited in a big way, and the poor folks of Boston will be forced to endure a summer with nothing but the Red Sox to keep them occupied.

In case you haven't been paying attention, that's not a good thing.

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