So much for the 'Paul Pierce is hurt' theory.
Paul Pierce woke up, smoked the Bulls early, and watched from the bench as the the last 5 players mopped up a blowout win that reclaimed home court for the Celtics. But the Captain isn't content with just holding serve for the rest of the first round.
"Personally, I don't want to come back to Chicago," Pierce said after a 1 1/2-hour practice at DePaul University Saturday. "We had a good day of practice.
"I'm treating this game like we lost Game 3. So, it's going to be my mindset to go out here and win Game 4 and, hopefully, put it away at home."
That's nice to say, but I want to see it. And if we see it, then we'll know that the Celtics have learned from last year's lessons. With Philly up on Orlando 2-1, it would be a great help to the Celtics to polish this series off in 5. Then they can sit back and get some much needed rest while both those teams beat each other up.
One note: if the Celtics can polish this series off in 5, will it still be the "best first round series' that everyone prematurely declared a few days ago?