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NBA FINALS: CELTIC v LAKERS

June 2, 2010

Paul Pierce

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

Q. Doc was just talking about two years ago he can't speak to whether you were distracted on the court coming into Game 3 but you were certainly distracted off the court with ticket requests and coming home and so forth. Is that an issue this time around? And if not, what are you doing to sort of shed that as something you have to deal with?
PAUL PIERCE: Tickets is always an issue when I come home to LA. There's no way around it. You've got to take care of the main family and closest friends. But I don't look at it as really a distraction. A lot of us have to do that when we go different places around the country and play when you go to your hometown. It's just so happens it's here and it's The Finals. You're definitely going to get a lot more ticket requests than normal. I don't have a problem saying "no" at this point in my career. I think people understand.
Why did you bring up Game 3, because that was the first game in LA?

Q. Yeah.
PAUL PIERCE: Oh, okay. And I didn't play well?

Q. Well, you didn't win. That's what I'm saying.
PAUL PIERCE: Oh, okay.

Q. I'm blaming it all on you.
PAUL PIERCE: I didn't play well that game.

Q. So you're seeing less of people this time around?
PAUL PIERCE: Yeah, it's definitely going to be less people. So if y'all are watching, it's definitely going to be less people. Definitely.

Q. How much do you see yourself checking Kobe in this next game, and what kind of responsibility is that?
PAUL PIERCE: Well, it's one of the biggest responsibilities in basketball. You're talking about a guy who can do it all on the court. I'm sure at some point throughout this series or throughout all these games I'll have to see myself matching up with him. You know, that's something that we're going to try to do, give them different looks. We're going to give them different looks, keep them off balance. That's something we did with other great players such as LeBron, such as Dwyane Wade, and you don't want them to get too comfortable with just one defender taking them one-on-one. Trapping the ball in his hands, being a little more physical with them. I'm sure at some point in this series or even tomorrow I see myself guarding him.

Q. I don't know if you saw the end of that Game 6 they played out west what Kobe was doing at the end of that game, has he gotten better even in the last season or something, as good as he's always been?
PAUL PIERCE: I think it's good as it's always been. I think that's what happens. When we get to about 30 years old, you pretty much have the same type of game that you're going to have pretty much the rest of your career. I think the better that you get is through mental, through your mentality and how you approach the game now, better things you can do out on the court. And I think once you master the mental part of the game, you become a master of the basketball game, which there's only been one master in basketball ever, and that's Michael Jordan, but Kobe is pretty close.

Q. Rajon's emergence aside, people still regard you, Kevin and Ray as a unit. The nickname we all know. Winning a second time for you guys as a unit and individually, what's it going to mean to you?
PAUL PIERCE: It's going to mean everything for my career, because a lot of guys will have won one and not many have won a couple. If you look at the great players in Celtic history, the great teams, they've all won a couple championships at least. So I want to be able to be mentioned up there with the great Celtics of all time, cement my name in history with the group by winning more than one championship. Those guys are really -- I mean, you can't really match what they've done, the past teams of the Celtics, but I'll continue to work hard. And to win another one and come close to it is pretty impressive, and I just hope to continue the great legacy that the Boston Celtics have, have provided basketball fans over the years, and I'm just happy to be a part of it.

Q. Can you just talk about the interaction that you had with Phil over the summer? Can you just take us back to maybe your reaction, just your thought with him saying he wanted to see you again in The Finals?
PAUL PIERCE: I mean, it's just a normal summer day. Walking down the street, walking my dog I ran into him. It's accidental, man. It was like he was at the stop sign actually when I was crossing the street. If I saw him walking, I wouldn't have crossed the street probably. I don't know, it was just like we bumped into each other, and I congratulated him on the win. Phil is one of the great coaches of all time. I've got a lot of respect for him. So I congratulated him.
He talks so low, I really didn't hear too much of what he said. It was just like he said something, and it was like, all right, peace out. So I guess that's what he said, get back to The Finals. But we definitely ran into each other. I didn't even take it as anything. It was a normal day for me walking my dog. I didn't want to run into Phil, I know that. They just won the championship. We don't like that around here, not in Boston Celtic nation.

Q. Two years ago they kind of threw a grab bag at you: Trevor Ariza was on you and Kobe guarded you and Walton was on you. This year it's Artest as really the primary guy on you. How does that change or how do you anticipate it changing in terms of your work in The Finals?
PAUL PIERCE: Well, it's not going to change what I do mentality-wise. I'm going to approach the game like I approach a lot of these games, just with the scorer's mentality, being real aggressive. Obviously I'm playing against one of the top defenders in the game. So he's going to make things a little bit more harder, a little bit more physical. You've got to expect that. I mean, that's what Ron Artest is, a guy who tries to get in your head throughout the game. Grab you, pull you, scratch you, you've just got to expect those things. When I go into a game playing against him, I expect all those things. My thing is just not getting caught up where I'm getting technical fouls or getting into shoving matches. But I know Ron pretty well on the court to know what to expect. But my mentality doesn't change.

Q. When you come to LA and you get a big celebrity studded crowd here at the Staples Center. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between the fans here and the fans at home?
PAUL PIERCE: Well, the fans at home cheer for us, the fans here don't. (Laughter).
I mean, I'm not at enough Laker games to really tell you how their fans are. I'm more biased knowing that our fans are, I want to say, I think a little bit more knowledgeable to the game. I think a lot of celebrities come here to get out of the house to watch a game, to see the other celebrities. But then you've got your fans to mix with them. It's an interesting crowd, whereas I think our fans really come to watch the actual game.

Q. If I ran into you 20 years ago and said, guess where you're going to be for a couple years, in that uniform against the Lakers in your old hometown, would you have thought this whole thing was crazy?
PAUL PIERCE: When I was 12 years old? Yeah, probably so, because I had baseball dreams then.
I mean, who thinks things like that are going to happen? When you were 12 years old did you think to yourself you were going to be one of the top writers or sports broadcasters? When you got to this age you never know. You have dreams, and I'm one of the few that accomplished my dream of going to the NBA. I had dreams of wearing a Laker uniform at that age, but I'm able to be in the NBA, continue on with the rivalry that I grew up watching and the rivalry that got me interested in basketball. I mean, it's a dream come true.
Just to tell you, I mean, I didn't want to be a Boston Celtic but I am a Boston Celtic, and I've enjoyed every moment of it. I've had a chance to learn the history, been around the great players. It's so much fun when you're in Boston and you see the Havliceks come around, you see Cousy, Maxwell, around Heinsohn all the time. Just soaking up the history of the Boston Celtics has been the best thing that's happened to me as a player.
Just to be a part of history, not a lot of players can say that. You know, I'm soaking this all in. Once again, being able to say -- help continue the rivalry of the Celtics and Lakers for another year and knowing that when you go back and watch these tapes that I will be on them. It's indescribable. I don't think it's going to soak in until my career is all said and done and I can really, really look back at it.

Q. Do you listen to Rondo on the floor more now than in '08? And how has his role as an on-the-court leader changed?
PAUL PIERCE: I think just his confidence. I think once you start doing things on the court and doing it well, you start gaining confidence in a player. Like I said, my first year they didn't really pass me the ball, and until I started scoring the ball and started gaining the trust, then I got the ball. So here comes Rondo. You know, Rondo, we believed in him as a starting point guard, but it was hard to fully trust him. Being I've been in the league ten-plus years, Kevin the same way, Ray the same, and you've got a guy in the second or third year. But we had to learn to trust Rondo over the years. Over the season we saw some of the things he was doing, and I think the more confident he got, the more vocal he became. The better his game got, the more we started to listen. A combination of things happened where we started to gain trust in Rondo with what he's been able to accomplish over the past few years.

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