Paul Pierce was recently a guest on the ‘Undisputed’ Show, hosted by American sports columnist and commentator, Skip Bayles. While on the show, Pierce and Bayles would discuss all things basketball, both ‘current and past’. It wouldn’t be long into the show before Pierce began to throw shades at the Lakers and LeBron.
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Pierce didn’t seem too pleased with the Lakers-Boston comparisons and shot back at the ‘purple and gold’. Talking about the Boston-Lakers rivalry, Pierce said,
“I guarantee y’all this. We will win our 18th Championship before the Lakers… Y’all won that bubble Championship…that Mickey Mouse Championship. Y’all going to count that!?”
Pierce’s comments were about the Lakers and the Celtics holding 17 rings each. Both franchises are tied for the most ‘chips’, and it’s no surprise that a Boston Legend like Paul Pierce believes that Tatum and Brown can bring home the 18th championship before the Lakers.
But it isn’t just the future that Pierce is staking claim on, as he also called into question the 2020 Championship. According to Pierce and media members/fan base, the 2020 Championship isn’t ‘legit’. Due to the ‘ COVID-19 pandemic’, the tournament structure was completely altered, and games were mostly played in empty venues. But calling the 2020 Championship a “Mickey Mouse Championship” is undoubtedly taking matters too far.
But the ex-NBA player Gilbert Arenas clapped back at Pierce for his comments. Calling out Pierce for his hypocrisy, Arenas commented on an Instagram video saying,
” Boston won 11 Championships during the 8-10 team AAU schedule. Boston has 13 AAU Rings.”
Arenas surely didn’t enjoy the hypocrisy from Pierce’s side, as he went into the matter even further. In the same video, Arenas would systematically point out how most of Boston’s rings came during the ’60s, 70’s, and 80’s. But as we pay attention to the modern era of basketball, Boston has only managed to win a single Championship in the last 30 years, a fact that remains ‘undisputed’.
Was the bubble actually ‘harder’?
Paul Pierce’s comments on the 2020 NBA Championship aren’t the first of its kind. We have all heard it before. But a small minority of players are coming clean on what it was like playing in the Bubble. Milwaukee’s star shooting guard, Damian Lillard believed that playing in the bubble was ‘harder’ than normal.
While on the KnuckleHeads Podcast, Lillard revealed,
“I think it [the Bubble chip] count extra…in the bubble it was, ain’t no travel, your treatment is right there like they had cold tubs at the pool waiting after every game, there was a bus to the gym, it was so light! I mean there was no travel, the practice was right there, it was all we had to think about. Everybody was like their sharpest,”
Other factors also made the Bubble a harder environment to win in. Majorly, players were not used to being isolated and had to make serious overnight adaptations. Conversely, players now had fewer distractions and were in better shape than they might have otherwise been.
Even though we can never ‘definitively’ know if winning in the bubble was easier, it surely wasn’t a walk in the park like Paul Pierce portrays it to be. With Pierce being among LeBrons harshest critics, it’s no surprise that the former NBA Champion would make such remarks.
