Hoops

Miami v Boston Brawl

Cheers TR.

lol at the look on Pierce's face after they were ejected. Looked like he was crapping himself..

MACDUB, you are clueless if you don't think Pierce was hurt on that play. It wasn't an injury, but when you slam the top of your shoulder into a guy like Haslem, its gonna hurt. Add that to the fact that he only hurt the same shoulder a few weeks back, I'm not surprised he went down.

I wasn't defending KG for hitting Rickert either. Just saying that it usually takes two to tango and having seen Rickert play, he is definitely the kind of guy who would get under opponents skin. So I suspect there is more to the story than was printed by the Washington Post. (BTW, I like the way Rickert gets after it. Wish the Sixers had a guy like him.)

From the Washington Post regarding Rickert/Garnett incident.

NBA most valuable player Kevin Garnett punched a former University of Minnesota player during a pickup game last week at Target Center, cutting the man's face and chipping his tooth.

Garnett punched Rick Rickert, a second-round draft pick of the Timberwolves last season, according to several sources with knowledge of the event. Seven stitches were required to close the cut on Rickert's chin, said Susan Rickert, the player's mother, during a phone interview yesterday.

Rickert, 21, scored several times with the 6-foot-11 Garnett guarding him. Several other players began to "tease" Garnett about being outplayed, according to a source. When Rickert scored again, Garnett struck him without warning.

Garnett punched teammate Wally Szczerbiak in the head following an argument, in 2000.

Read more: http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/32979/20040901/garnett_punches_player_during_pickup_game/#ixzz0laDSaBmF

http://www.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/32979/20040901/garnett_punches_player_during_pickup_game/

from the Washington Post so not a biased version from Rickert.

Lol at Beantown,
How could you think that Pierce got injured on that?
The contact was minimal!! He just dived out of bounds because he wanted to get the call before he fell out of bounds..then he laid down for a bit because he probably wanted people to think he was dead so then he could make some miracolous comback.

And how in the world could you defend KG in the Rickert incident. This is how it adds up to me..Rickert scored on KG a few times and KG got angry that someone was showing him up. Then he punched Rickert and told the Timberwolves staff to get rid of him. Of course the T-Wolves are going to listen to their franchise player so it was goobye Rick!

KG is a dirty player, who IMO shouldn't make the HOF. Man i would love that..

It was offset because Davis also had a tech for Boston and Q-Rich and Haslem got techs for Miami. 3-2 techs = 1. Hence one FT and Boston lost possession.

Possibly the rule should be that all of the FT's are shot by each team, because that means the team who shoots their FT's better gets a deserved advantage, but its boring watching a FT fest, so I wasn't too fussed really.

Mystro, didn't realise the guy that KG punched at practice all those years ago was Rickert! I suspect you're getting a fairly biased Rickert view though. The idea of Rickert scoring repeatedly on KG is ludicrous unless KG was taking it easy because it was practice and he didn't want to get hurt! I like the way Rickert gets after it, but I'm guessing most players end up pretty sore after going against him?

Bit harsh on Pierce though. Yesterday's injury looked innocuous, but Haslem crunched his shoulder again, the same one he hurt against the Spurs about three weeks ago. I have no doubt that would have hurt quite a lot!

Its such a load of crap that people are having a go at Pierce for being soft. After almost being stabbed to death just before his second season, he was playing great basketball just a short time later.

He has also played with a lot of injuries over the years, barely taking any games off even when Boston sucked and had no shot of making the playoffs.

When he hurt his knee during the finals in 2008, he said afterwards that he was really worried when it happened because something popped. Fortunately, it must have popped back into place and he was able to return. But put yourself in his shoes. You've spent most of your career struggling on average teams, you finally make it to the finals and you're afraid you've blown your knee out, probably costing you a title! Wouldn't you be fearing the worst?

As far as the fracas goes, as soon as I saw Q-Rich go up to KG I knew there would be trouble. Whoever posted that stuff from ESPN is wrong. Q-Rich didn't go up to Pierce to see if he was okay. He went up to talk trash to Pierce, because as someone said, those two have a history.

Of course a good team mate will defend his own guy, but KG always takes it that one step further and pushes guys over the edge. On this occasion it bit him on the ass because pretty soon he was basically surrounded by Heat players and in trying to break free he swung his elbow. Not sure if he was definitely trying to crack Q-Rich or not, but he did and thats a suspension, end of story. He knew it too -he said as much afterwards in the post game interviews.

In the end, it doesn't really matter. KG's lost his mobility and hops and without them, Boston doesn't have enough defence, rebounding, or a consistent enough post option to challenge for the title.

Unless KG has a miracle off season and is able to finally get his body right again, Boston are stuck in no mans land for two more seasons. Its not possible to retool Boston's payroll before then unless KG retires, Pierce opts out and resigns for half price and Ray is let go.

Oh yeah, anonymous #274494, I wouldn't get too excited about the Cavs pounding the Celtics in the second round. It will be a hollow victory with KG unable to quarterback his team properly. It'd be like Boston beating the Cavs if Lebron had gimpy knees. Its hardly Jordan beating Drexler or Malone/ Stockton in their primes!

KG is the king of the cheap shot. Rick Rickert felt the wrath of his cheapness at Minnesota when KG punched him after Rickert scored on him again and again in practice to the delight of his team mates.
The end result was Rickert getting released so that the Twolves superstar was kept happy. Pierce loves to play dead, Dwade has also pulled similar antics, playing weak and sick and then goes on a scoring rampage lol.

The Celts now need to dismantle this squad as they'll never win it again. They are still creaming over winning it 2 seasons ago.

Pierce has really ruined his reputation the last couple of seasons in my eyes, this injury "thing" he does, seen it at least twice or 3 times now, is really lame.

It was just Kevin Garnett being a douche. Pierce was hurt and limped over toward the Miami bench, Garnett was attending to him after the play when Quentin Richardson walked over.

It looked like Quentin was just making sure Pierce was OK as he was involved in the foul on Pierce. But Garnett elbowed Richardson out of the way, then threw another elbow that connected and got Garnett (rightfully) thrown out after the video review.

This of course sparked a whole big melee that really shouldn't have happened. It could have been very costly for Boston as Miami were only down 6, if enough free throws and posession were given, Miami could've been right back in it.

At least no one got up off the Boston bench and made it even worse.