Paul Pierce doesn’t enjoy any conversation in which a decrease in his playing time is the issue.
The Celtics [team stats] captain may be two weeks removed from two procedures to drain an infection in his right knee, but injuries elsewhere in the lineup have triggered an increase in his own minutes.
Asked about whether he needs to trim back on that time to allow the knee to fully heal and to take a strain off his game, Pierce nodded.
“I think so,” he said. “It’s been kind of difficult with the injuries. It’s good to get a couple of days off where we can rest our legs. Some of the guys coming back will help tremendously.”
There’s one problem with that statement. Pierce deftly steered the focus away from his own load and onto the team.
Asked to apply that question to himself, Pierce wasn’t as willing to take a minutes hit, even if he has averaged 38.0 of them since his return to the lineup six games ago.
“In my case, (it was) an infection,” he said. “It’s not like it was ligament damage. It’s putting time in the weight room, getting on the treadmill to strengthen up the quad. But playing in a game actually has helped get it stronger. Playing in the last four or five games has actually helped.
“It’s helped me gain some stamina, because it was weak in the first few games, and it’s getting stronger and stronger with the more I play.”
Pierce, at one time a regular member of the NBA’s top five in minutes played, is slowly - and quite by the design of his coach - dropping on that chart.
He’s 36th in the league with an overall 35.8-minute average, and, perish the thought, third in playing time on his own team.
Rajon Rondo [stats] (36.3 mpg, 29th in the league) and the aging but remarkably spry Ray Allen (36.2, 30th) now typically stay on the floor longer.
But the Celtics’ ongoing battle with injuries, which hit a peak during the last month starting with Pierce’s knee trouble, has added significantly to the captain’s load.
He’s gone more than 40 minutes four times during the six games since his return. In three of those cases (Thursday against Chicago and twice against Atlanta), the C’s lost. Pierce logged his heaviest number (43 minutes) during a tight Jan. 6 win at Miami.
Pierce may not admit the 40-minute-plus games have to stop, but his coach has another idea.
“We don’t need that, either,” said Doc Rivers, who even raised the prospect yesterday of lessening Pierce’s time by giving more opportunity to J.R. Giddens or the rarely used Bill Walker.
“I’ll play Billy or J.R. - one of them just to get Paul some more rest,” Rivers said. “The last couple of games we got into foul trouble, (putting more of a burden on) Paul. Someone else has to stay on the floor. I don’t mind a couple of 40-minute games from any of our guys because you can make it up.
“In the Jersey game he didn’t play that many minutes. (But) I still want to avoid it. If there are two or three (40-minute games) in the same week, then that’s too much. I just think he needed this (break). When he came back the first thing Eddie (Lacerte, the trainer) said is, ‘Listen, he’s in playing shape, but his leg has to get stronger again.’ It’s not surgery, but (when you think about it) he had surgery because of the drainage. So he needs this week. This is a good week for him.”
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