NYTimes.com Article: Pierce Finds New Life in His Game

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Pierce Finds New Life in His Game

January 5, 2002 

By MIKE WISE


 

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 4 - Under the championship banners at
the Boston Celtics' practice gym, two teammates playfully
waged a coastal hoop war. Biting wit versus brutal sarcasm,
back and forth across the parquet floor. 

"They don't get enough sun on the East Coast so they hold
it against us," Paul Pierce, a native Californian, said.
"The hatred for the West Coast player, it's all over.
Especially in high school. When you go back East, it's
always, `The West is soft.' I can't tell you how many guys
I got into with over that. That probably has something to
do with why no one heard of me until the McDonald's all-
American game." 

Kenny Anderson, in an exaggerated Queens accent, replied:
"Because there's no ballers on the West Coast like in New
York, the mecca of basketball. That's why nobody heard of
you." 

Pierce shook his head and smiled, almost content with a
draw. On Wednesday, he was named the National Basketball
Association Eastern Conference's co-player of the month,
along with his teammate Antoine Walker. On Thursday, he
participated in a photo shoot for the New England Medical
Center, where he spent four days recovering from stab
wounds after an assault by three men at a Boston nightclub
in September 2000. 

For Pierce, 24, an emerging star for the reinvigorated
Boston Celtics, this is a journey on two fronts.
Professionally, Pierce's play over the past few months has
allowed him passage into the group of pro basketball's best
swingmen, alongside Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Vince
Carter. 

His personal passage, physically and psychologically
overcoming a vicious attack, has made his rise in the
N.B.A. that much more astonishing. 

"I started to look at it as, if I can overcome escaping
death, nothing scares me," Pierce said. "To this day, I
look at it as a rebirth. A new beginning." 

Despite his age, Pierce views himself as a late bloomer.
There were the high school snubs; falling to No. 10 in the
draft after a memorable college career at Kansas; and all
the games in which he looked clueless in Rick Pitino's
defensive schemes his first two seasons in Boston. He also
dealt with his teenage peers carrying their N.B.A. teams at
tender ages. 

"I felt after my second year I could have been placed in
that category, but I understood it's about winning," Pierce
said. "It's something I never talked about or worried
about, I just knew it would happen when we turned things
around." 

Pierce blossomed late last season and in the first few
months of this season. He averaged 27.7 points, 6.6
rebounds, 3.3 assists and more than 2 steals a game in
December, when he and Walker seamlessly blended their force
and grace to lead the decade- bad Celtics back to some
sense of hallowed normalcy. 

The Celtics, who were 11-5 last month, come to Madison
Square Garden to face the Knicks on Saturday night with the
conference's third- best record, 19-12. Pierce has had 13
30-point games this season, and once scored 46 of his 48
points after halftime against the Nets. 

"He's in the upper echelon of under-25 big-timers," said
Leo Papile, the Celtics' player personnel director.
"There's McGrady, Bryant and Carter - a whole list of guys
in that swing position that are going to go down as part of
the next all-50 team. Paul is now among them." 

After the Celtics routed the Magic on Wednesday night,
Orlando Coach Doc Rivers said: "I don't think he or the
league thought he was tough his first couple of years. He
scored, but he wasn't physically tough. These days, he's
darn right nasty at times. When he takes you to the basket,
he's committed. He's going for it. Now it's just awesome to
watch." 

A few games into his first season, Pierce, a 6-foot-6
swingman with little muscle definition, got into it with
Charles Oakley, the 6-9, 250-pound veteran enforcer. 

"You know how Oakley kind of falls down, but then tries to
roll over you and give you that something extra?" Pierce
said. "He gave me one of his extras. So I kind of threw his
arm off of me. We got into a little skirmish and they broke
it up quick. 

"After the game, everybody was laughing at me. `You know
that's Charles Oakley, right? He's known for slapping
people, so you don't come at him like that, rookie.' I
didn't know. I just felt like if I backed down, I would be
dead for the rest of my career. Everybody would think of me
as soft." 

Celtics Coach Jim O'Brien said Pierce's improved defense
and his maturation as a leader have been the largest
reasons for his breakout season. Against Orlando, his
out-of-nowhere, left-handed block of a Mike Miller dunk
attempt inspired his team. But Pierce's offensive numbers
and his unconscious shooting stroke are the main reasons
the N.B.A. is palpitating over his talent. 

"We knew early on that the high release of his shot and his
footwork to get people off balance was special," O'Brien
said. "He's just an incredibly comfortable player on
offense." 

It has become routine for opposing players to chide Pierce
for embarrassing certain defenders on their team. "After
games, they'll say stuff like, `Why did you do him like
that?' " he said. 

These offensive outbursts are not new. At Inglewood High
School, in a playoff game, Pierce once scored 20 points in
two minutes . He grew up in the shadow of the Forum and
used to sneak in to the Lakers' old home to watch Magic
Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy. 

He is the youngest son of Lorraine Hosey, who reared three
boys by herself. Her oldest, Steve Hosey, was a star
outfielder for Fresno State who played briefly in the major
leagues; he recently worked as a hitting instructor for the
Oakland A's Class A affiliate. 

Pierce said his family and friends helped him overcome his
stabbing 15 months ago. "I went to see a psychiatrist
twice," Pierce said. "But it wasn't something I felt I
really needed. I felt stupid actually doing it, going
through the close-your-eyes stuff. I felt this is something
I can deal with on my own, with the support of people
around me." 

By most accounts, Pierce was at the nightclub Buzz,
mingling with part of Boston's hard-edged hip-hop crowd. He
was having a conversation with a woman when, prosecutors
say, three men who knew her set upon him. 

Pierce was stabbed three times in his abdomen and the left
side of his lower chest. A bottle was slammed over his head
and he was stabbed five more times in his back between his
shoulder blades. As he slipped on a sweater Wednesday
night, the inch- long scars were visible. 

"It was a real crowded place," Pierce recalled Thursday as
he sat courtside at the Celtics' practice gym. "I don't
know what people thought, but there was no way I was
hitting on a girl. It was no more than a minute
conversation and the next thing you know, my life is
changed. Things just happened so fast, I didn't even know
it was three people. I thought it was 10 or 15 people. You
don't realize what's going on until it's over." 

His teammate Tony Battie and Battie's younger brother
dragged Pierce to an emergency room, where he underwent
arthroscopic surgery to repair a ruptured lung. By medical
and other fortune, his life and career were spared that
night. 

"I was asking people at the hospital if I was going to make
it," Pierce said. "That was my question every five seconds.
`Am I going to live? Am I going to be all right?' You panic
in that situation. You think the worst." 

Rehabilitation was grueling, but somehow Pierce was back on
a basketball court within three weeks. "People don't know
this, but he couldn't lift weights last year because of the
incident," Walker said. "After the wounds healed, he was
able to have a full workout last summer. He overcame. He's
got a lot of heart." 

Pierce will testify against the three men charged with
stabbing him at a trial later this year. Prosecutors have
accused the men of three different assault charges, the
most serious of which is assault with intent to murder;
they face up to 32 years in prison if convicted. 

Pierce said that the incident had affected him in many
ways. "I don't jump up after nightmares in a cold sweat,"
he said. "That's over with. I don't dream about it or have
flashbacks about it. But the scars are there, and they'll
always be there as a reminder. 

"You look at it and you say, `This is probably the worst
thing that can happen to me as a person.' It put my life in
perspective. It made me hungrier on the basketball court.
You cherish your family, your friends, the game and your
everyday habits. Because you don't realize when it can be
over."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/05/sports/basketball/05CELT.html?ex=1011333100&ei=1&en=9ecd2888ad8657d5



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