I hate Bill Plaske and his holier than thou attuitude / media reaction to Pierce

[Mean Gerald Green]

I don't know if anyone is watching First Take right now but I have to say Skip Bayless and Jalen Rose are an embarrassment.

They both have come to the conclusion that Paul Pierce was faking and that he has one of the lowest tolerances for pain in the NBA. Maybe someone should point out to these yahoos what Paul Pierce has been through in his lifetime.

Bayless said it reminded him of the Lebron James commercial where the guy fakes the injury. He even had the nerve to compare Pierce to Vince Carter. Bayless is a joke and his degrading attitude towards everyone is really getting old.

Jalen Rose is just an idiot who tries too hard to come off as intelligent.

[wdleehi]

Glad I missed it this morning. 




Why can't these loud mouths realize that Peirce did hurt himself. It probably hurt a ton at the time.  As a little time passed, the pain subsided enough that they could test the leg and Pierce found out he could play through it.



It is not at the same level as Willis Reed (as some have compared it to), but Pierce was not acting.

[Larry Legend]

1.  What are you doing watching that crappy show (First Take or whatever it's called)?
2.  We can only hope he was faking.  Otherwise we're looking at the rest of this series with a banged up captain.

[Roy Hobbs]

Why can't these loud mouths realize that Peirce did hurt himself. It probably hurt a ton at the time.  As a little time passed, the pain subsided enough that they could test the leg and Pierce found out he could play through it.

Exactly.  Plus, there's always the possibility that they injected him with some sort of painkiller.  I'm not sure how quickly those act, but it's always a possibility.

[Shamrock]

I don't know if anyone is watching First Take right now but I have to say Skip Bayless and Jalen Rose are an embarrassment.

They both have come to the conclusion that Paul Pierce was faking and that he has one of the lowest tolerances for pain in the NBA. Maybe someone should point out to these yahoos what Paul Pierce has been through in his lifetime.

Bayless said it reminded him of the Lebron James commercial where the guy fakes the injury. He even had the nerve to compare Pierce to Vince Carter. Bayless is a joke and his degrading attitude towards everyone is really getting old.

Jalen Rose is just an idiot who tries too hard to come off as intelligent.

Paul Pierce is one of the least likely guys in the NBA to fake anything.  I have watched every game he has played in for the last 3 years - the guy is a warrior. He takes a beating every night - I never see him whine or complain.  He is tough as nails.

[winsomme]

why is it so hard to fathom for all these national media types that Pierce thought he seriously injured the knee and they took extra precautions until they could get back in the locker room to get a close look at it.

i mean, this is the Finals.

it makes no logical sense for Pierce to take himself out of a game that they were losing when he was actually playing really well (he single handedly erased the LA hlaf time lead in under a minute) knowing that he was fine...

[GroverTheClover]

I hope Paul takes the criticism from these talking heads and uses it as motivation.

[ma11l]

I don't know if anyone is watching First Take right now but I have to say Skip Bayless and Jalen Rose are an embarrassment.

They both have come to the conclusion that Paul Pierce was faking and that he has one of the lowest tolerances for pain in the NBA. Maybe someone should point out to these yahoos what Paul Pierce has been through in his lifetime.

Bayless said it reminded him of the Lebron James commercial where the guy fakes the injury. He even had the nerve to compare Pierce to Vince Carter. Bayless is a joke and his degrading attitude towards everyone is really getting old.

Jalen Rose is just an idiot who tries too hard to come off as intelligent.

I'm glad someone else saw this.  I was just about to add that to this thread.  I really was outraged watching these two morons.  I would expect it from the nitwit Bayless but not from Rose.  He was in the league for years with Pierce and must know how tough he is.  Did he never have enough adrenaline going through his body to carry him through an injury for one night?


I also think they should at least wait for an update or an MRI to see how Pierce is.  If he can't play the rest of this series the NBA fans and its columnists will be robbed of a great series.  He is the heart and soul of this team.


The worst part is that it was the trainers who made the guys carry Paul off and put him on the wheelchair, not Paul's.  They knew it could've been an ACL tear and had to keep it stabilized. 

I agree that the best word for those two is embarrassment.  I'd love to see them try to do what Paul did last night, or go through half the stuff that Pierce has been through in his life.  What a joke.

[ma11l]

And another thing, even if he was faking or overreacting why can't they also spend a minute or two giving the man credit for winning the game for the Celtics.  He erased the halftime lead in a minute and put them over the top when they made their run in the third quarter.  All he did in the fourth was play good defense on Kobe Bryant.  I don't care if you have one, two, or three good legs, that is an impressive feat. 

[Roy Hobbs]

I don't know if anyone is watching First Take right now but I have to say Skip Bayless and Jalen Rose are an embarrassment.

They both have come to the conclusion that Paul Pierce was faking and that he has one of the lowest tolerances for pain in the NBA.

Besides the stabbing, wasn't there also a game where Pierce got a couple of his teeth knocked out and came back and played?  And then he played on that infected elbow -- which not only hurt, but limited Pierce's mobility of the joint -- for parts of two meaningless seasons, just out of pure competitiveness.

The media and opposing fans are for the most part out of their mind.  It might not have been Willis Reed, but it wasn't nothing, either.

[ACF]

I don't know how many minutes Paul
averaged in the regular season.
But I'm quite certain it was more
than those 31 he played in Game 1!

He was in early foul trouble and had
to watch a whole lot from the bench.
These are the ****' FINALS!
What would be his motivation not to play?
And subsequentially fake an injury!?
Geez...

I just hope Our Hero will be back come Sunday...

[BUTerrier]

Why can't these loud mouths realize that Peirce did hurt himself. It probably hurt a ton at the time.  As a little time passed, the pain subsided enough that they could test the leg and Pierce found out he could play through it.

Exactly.  Plus, there's always the possibility that they injected him with some sort of painkiller.  I'm not sure how quickly those act, but it's always a possibility.

I'll say this: I threw out my back a couple of weeks ago, to the point where I couldn't even stand up for more than 10 seconds without collapsing. And I went to the ER, and they gave me a shot of Tordol (which is a low-level muscle relaxant), and I could stand and walk around in about 15 minutes. And I'm in nowhere near as good shape as Pierce, which means they could have given him a higher dose of a slightly stronger injection and he'd be out of pain for a while.

I don't even think it's homerism to say that Pierce wasn't faking the injury. I do, however, agree that the whole media approach to it was probably a bit much. The way they were playing the camera angles (especially in the hall, where the guy held that Gatorade cooler up to block the camera angle), you'd have thought he was paralyzed or something. That's in no way Pierce's fault, but I think if anyone should be getting tsk-tsked today, it's the media directors for ramping up unnecessary drama.

[saibnel]

I hate the media already heard 65% of them say PP was faking. H

Really he knew that if he fake an injury he would come back and go 3 for 3 and hit two huge 3's within 20 seconds to give us a lead we would not give up... that is a HUGE gamble.

Plus anyone who plays a sport knows how these things are handled, when I was a senior I stepped in a hole on the field running full speed hurt like hell for 2 mins wanted to walk off and the trainer wouldnt let me, and I quote "you dont walk until I look at your knee over on the sideline". PP's knee is worth 20mil a year for the next three I think it is safe to say a real doctor and head NBA trainer would at least be as cautious with him as a high school trainer would be with some useless white kids knee.

[PaulBonner]

A part of me wants to ignore all the BS criticism and just hope that Pierce is OK and well enough to play effectively in the rest of the series. But another part of me is also p---ed off at the fact that this guy who has come so far in his career with the Celtics, as a player and as a person, played his heart out in the first finals game of his career, playing through pain to hit big shots and get his team in a position to win the game, is facing CRITICISM for being cautious about what could have been, and still potentially is, a serious injury?

Screw the national media, screw the Lakers fans, and screw everyone trying to take anything away from Paul Pierce today after what he did for the Celtics last night.

[Nerf MVP]

I don't know if anyone is watching First Take right now but I have to say Skip Bayless and Jalen Rose are an embarrassment.

They both have come to the conclusion that Paul Pierce was faking and that he has one of the lowest tolerances for pain in the NBA.

Besides the stabbing, wasn't there also a game where Pierce got a couple of his teeth knocked out and came back and played?

Yeah, I think it was against the Suns. He's also played on sprained ankles in the same game (not the only player to do so, but still....)

Plashke is an idiot. For someone who seems wrapped up in integrity and class, he seems to have none. Also, he said Pierce twisted his knee from being "faked out", or "juked" or something. No, Perk fell on him. Don't let the facts get in the way of a sweet burn though.

I didn't go over the article with a magnifying glass. Did he not mention Belichick once?

Edit: When I said "same game", I meant the same game he sprained his ankle in and not the Suns game.

and it was "apparently faked out of his kneecap"