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At age 31, with nearly 900 games on his NBA odometer, you cannot ask Pierce to carry the Celtics offensively AND defend a physical freak like LeBron seven times in 14 days without a ton of help. It's just too much. If Garnett, one of the greatest help defenders of all time, was backing him up? Maybe. But not Glen Davis, Kendrick Perkins, Leon Powe and Mikki Moore. Pierce's only chance to survive and thrive for a seven-game bloodbath of a Cleveland series -- and by proxy, Boston's best chance -- would be for the Celtics to immediately hire Brian McNamee, Victor Conte and Kirk Radomski as "team consultants." Not a bad idea, actually.
But let's get serious. The man who will have to produce, who will have to bring nightly A games, who will have to be as good as he likes to think he is: The Captain.
Paul Pierce came away from last season's Finals with an enhanced reputation as a prime-time player. But that didn't seem to be enough for him. Unless I mistook what he was saying, he couldn't understand why people were hesitating to put him on the same level as Kobe and LeBron (and now, Dwyane). OK, Cap. If you really are that good, now's the time to prove it.
I, for one, won't hold him to that. It's no insult to be a great player, as Pierce is, and still be a cut below that reigning Holy Trinity of Hoop.
