On this day, Paul Pierce had his ‘wheelchair’ game in Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals, Marcus Thornton was born, and Mike Bloom left us.
On this day in Boston Celtics history, star forward Paul Pierce had to be carried off the court and placed in a wheelchair after having smashed his knee into teammate Kendrick Perkins late in the third quarter of Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The wind came out of Boston’s home arena, the Celtics looking hopelessly outmatched without the Kansas alum’s services being available. But after just a few moments of treatment in the locker room, Pierce reappeared, nailing a pair of 3-pointers. Boston would go on to win the game and the series in six games to secure their 17th and most recent championship, the most in league history.
Rumors persist as to what exactly happened to Pierce on that day — a possibly apocryphal tale the Californian had a bowel movement seems to have been taken up by Pierce as a joke, but might also have been an admission.
Could it be The Truth that it had nothing to do with a missed bathroom break after all?
The controversy of what ended up happening in the infamous Boston Celtics “wheelchair game” that saw Hall of Fame forward Paul Pierce taken to the locker room after an injury playing vs. the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals only to see The Truth return to the game to help Boston get the win is morphing again with new revelations from the man himself.
Previously, perhaps in jest, Pierce suggested he’d had an accident of the bathroom variety and needed to get back to the locker room to change. But in a recent Showtime Basketball interview for the “KG Certified” podcast between Pierce, his Banner 17 teammate Kevin Garnett and three Celtics of today in Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, and Jayson Tatum, Brown inquired about that fateful day.
“I sprained my MCL,” said Pierce to laughter from all parts, evidently all thinking of that accident-themed “admission” Pierce had made not long ago on an ESPN broadcast. “Don’t believe all of them rumors that I had to go to the bathroom.”
When is it time to worry about the Celtics? @CelticsLab had special guest @AnnaHorford on to talk Cs 🍀🏀
On this day, star Boston Celtics forward Paul Pierce had his ‘wheelchair’ game in the first game of the 2008 NBA Finals, and ex-Celtic guard Marcus Thornon was born.
On this day, Boston Celtics star forward Paul Pierce had to be carried off the court and placed in a wheelchair after having smashed his knee into teammate Kendrick Perkins late in the third quarter of Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers.
The wind came out of Boston’s home arena, the Celtics looking hopelessly outmatched without the Kansas product’s services being available.
But after just a few moments of treatment in the locker room, Pierce reappeared, nailing a pair of 3-pointers.
Boston would go on to win the game and the series in six games to secure their 17th and most recent championship, the most in league history.
Rumors persist as to what exactly happened to Pierce on that day — a possibly apocryphal tale the Californian had a bowel movement seems to have been taken up by Pierce as a joke, but might also have been an admission.
The world may never know if there was poo involved in Truth.
Former Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers shares his own experience of what happened in Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals — AKA “the wheelchair game”.
Former Boston Celtics head coach recently related his own perspective on an iconic moment in recent Celtics history.
Speaking with former Boston guard Eddie House and center Kendrick Perkins to provide commentary for the recent Celtics rebroadcast of Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals on NBC Sports Boston, the ex-head coach of the Celtics gave his version of the infamous Paul Pierce “wheelchair game”.
For many years, there had been a fierce debate over what had actually happened — if anything — to Pierce, as his seemingly miraculous recovery was widely suspected to be a farce, particularly by Los Angeles Lakers fans.
More recent revelations (or, perhaps, jokes?) have further clouded the historical record, so some words from Rivers on the topic immediately caught one’s attention.
“They saw him in a wheelchair,” he continued. “And all this I didn’t see any of that. I never knew about the wheelchair. I remember going in the press conference after the game and someone asked me about a wheelchair and I was like, ‘What wheelchair? What are you talking about?’ I was in the game, so I didn’t know any of this.”
“Now, I thought Paul may be out when he got hurt — it looked [that way], the way he grabbed his knee — and I had had an ACL [torn] as a player,” added Rivers.
On this date 10 years ago, Paul Pierce's "Wheelchair Game" made its mark on the Celtics-Lakers rivalry. pic.twitter.com/h8jFq7IBeC
The sight put a scare into the coach, who immediately began reconfiguring his focus in real time based on what he was seeing.
“I honestly in my mind, thought, ‘Okay, we have to win Game 1’. That’s all I thought about. I didn’t think about the series as a whole at that point. I was thinking somehow, let’s win this game and then see how we can win the series. And my entire focus was on Game 1.”
“That was it once he went down, in that huddle. If you remember, I think I walked in the huddle and I can’t remember. But I think I said, ‘Guys, we’re going to win this game,” he explained.
Energized by the injury to one of their own, the team was ready to step into the breach and try to win the game without The Truth.
Then, it became clear they didn’t need to.
Paul Pierce is a legend for shitting his pants in a Finals game then getting a staffer to wheelchair him to a porcelain throne to finish the job. https://t.co/RIYmMkm6eN
“At that point, I didn’t think Paul was coming back And then Brian McKeon, you know, Dr. McKeon comes up to me [and says], ‘Paul’s good. He’s coming back,’ and I’m like, ‘What?’, and and I looked at Eddie [Lacerte, longtime team trainer], because … Eddie Lacerte at the time thought he was out too.”
“[Lacerte] was on the floor with me. And so then, I’m looking at can he go in? And [Ed] said, ‘Yeah’, and I was shocked,” related Rivers. “Just like, I’m sure, the Laker fans who saw Paul go in the wheelchair.”
