Paul Pierce was one of the fiercest competitors in the NBA during his time who often rubbed people the wrong way. His competitive spirit was his most powerful weapon, and he and Al Harrington shared a healthy distaste for each other that stemmed from the 2003 Eastern Conference Playoffs. Harrington recently made an appearance on the Out The Mud podcast, where he discussed how Pierce was one of his toughest matchups.
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Speaking to Zach Randolph and Tony Allen, Harrington claimed he never liked Pierce. For the entirety of his 16-year NBA career, Harrington would suit up for every matchup against Pierce with a desire to win, and hatred in his heart. He admitted as much on the pod, saying,
“Paul [Pierce] was more, cos I ain’t like Paul too. We had a whole thing, I hated that n***a when we was playing, we cool now, but when we was playing.”
Of course, their rivalry was extremely competitive, with Harrington edging ahead on head-to-head wins, both in the regular season and the playoffs. The former Pacer was 26-21 against Pierce, with a 6-4 record in the payoffs.
Unfortunately for Harrington, their rivalry often gets brought up when talking about Pierce’s successes and one particularly amazing shot in the 2003 playoffs.
Pierce’s Celtics and Harrington’s Pacers were matched up in the first round, with the 3-seeded Pacers narrow favorites to advance. But the Celtics flipped the script on them, and, heading into game 4, held a 2-1 series lead.
Up by 8 in the final 30 seconds of regulation, Pierce was ready to put the Pacers away for good. Harrington was bent on stopping Pierce’s potential dagger and stepped up to the challenge. They started jawing at each other up until Pierce rose up for the shot and nailed the dagger.
Per the New York Times, after the game, Harrington said,
“I was down in my stance. And he said: ‘That ain’t gonna do nothing. Here I come, here I come.’ And it didn’t do nothing because he made that three. I did all I could do because I fouled him, and he still made the shot.”
Pierce has always been praised by his opponents as one of their hardest defensive assignments, and this instance showed exactly why. He was tremendously skilled on the court and had a lethal 3-point shot. His mastery of the mid-range game made him unpredictable too, and defenders would often end up fouling the Hall of Famer when he sped past them to score.
Pierce wasn’t the only one Harrington praised, though. He called his podcast host Zach Randolph another one of his toughest assignments, claiming the Grizzlies legend’s offensive and defensive engine and intensity would “wear him down.”
He told Randolph and Allen that the former’s continuous effort was what made him difficult to guard. Harrington compared playing against Randolph to a wrestling match and joked that he took so many hits from Z-Bo that he had to ice his entire body after the game.
