Full Court Press: 5/5/05 Celtics vs. Pacers Game 6

By Greg
Celtics 92 - Pacers 89 OT
Series Tied 3 - 3

A defining moment. For many of the participants, Game 6 of the opening round of the 2005 NBA playoffs between the Celtics and the Indiana Pacers had the chance to be just that. And that can be either a good or bad thing, depending on the end result. For some players, it had the chance to be both.

One such player was Pacers guard Reggie Miller. He struggled through an off game in which he went 3-10 from the field, raising the very real possibility he had played the last game of his Hall of Fame career before his home fans in forgettable fashion. But in the end, remarkably, he had the shot as time expired in regulation to erase all that and win it with a trademark three. It came up well short. No defining moment.

For young Kendrick Perkins, his chance at a defining moment came, to his apparent dismay, in a flurry of weirdness that ended regulation and which had the second year player at the free throw line for the win at the choosing of Pacers coach Rick Carlisle. Perkins, who had not played in this game, was chosen to take Paul Pierce’s free throws with little time on the clock and the game tied 84-84 when Pierce was ejected from the game prior to shooting free throws of his own. Perkins missed both shots and looked to become a most unfortunate and undeserved recipient of a negative defining moment had things gone slightly differently in overtime.

For Celtic Antoine Walker, the chameleon of a power forward who can be both loved and despised by Celtics fans, appreciated and derided, his chance at a defining moment came in a memorable, spirited second half and overtime performance for the ages in which he literally helped carry the Celtics across the finish line and off into the night victorious and headed for Game 7. Walker’s second half was filled with rebounds and tips and twists and turns and baskets which kept the Celtics from faltering under the weight of the onrushing home team. For Walker, it was a second half which offered redemption, he having been widely written off this series by the fans and media types as a more of a burden to the Celtics cause than help. The fact the Celtics had won Game 4 so convincingly while Walker sat out suspended, only to play lethargically upon his return in Game 5, had seemed to only cement that opinion. But Walker’s magnificent second half and overtime performance last night erased all that and proved sometimes conventional wisdom isn’t wisdom at all. Redemption was his, yes, but no single defining moment.

And finally for Paul Pierce, the sometimes spectacular, sometimes sullen star of the Celtics, his virtuoso performance had a chance to be a defining moment too, only to see it all come crashing down as the fourth quarter concluded into perhaps the most disastrous episode of his career. Throughout the game Pierce had been the Celtics ultimate answer to everything the Pacers threw at them. Rebounding, shooting, passing, and hustling his way through this game at a level so far above those Pacers trying to defend him, Pierce was the main reason the Celtics took an early second quarter lead they almost never gave up. He was clearly the best player on the court and helped the Celtics charge all the way back from an early 11-0 deficit to a six point halftime lead that grew to eight after three. It was a lead which they only relinquished in the last moments of the fourth quarter.

Was Pierce having one of those post-season defining moment of heightened performance just as the Celtics had their backs up against the wall and faced elimination? The kind that has made his Boston counterparts David Ortiz and Tom Brady so legendary? Perhaps, one thought, watching Pierce literally will and carry the Celtics methodically towards victory. But as the seconds ticked down on the game with the Celtics up one, a hard foul on Pierce by Pacers guard Jamaal Tinsley brought just the sort of sports moment from Pierce that has forever condemned the likes of Bill Buckner, Fred Merkel, Steve Bartman and other unfortunate souls to the nether regions of eternal sport infamy. Pierce reacted to the Tinsley hard foul by throwing an elbow at Tinsely, knocking the perhaps ready to flop Pacer guard to the floor. The refs, who had not been in a very forgiving mood to the Celtics this night or for much of the series for that matter, had seen all they needed to whack Pierce with a technical foul and eject him from the game, it being his second technical foul of the night. A skulking Pierce, who had only moments before been a valiant warrior leading the Celtics to victory, left the floor, shirt waving, perhaps unaware how close he really was teetering to everlasting sports damnation in Boston as a bum.

In the end, Pierce would escape that fate, as the Celtics would win this contest in exhausting fashion in the extra frame. Barely. And perhaps that was most fair to Pierce, for it would have been too easy, as is often the case of those sports performers forever cast into the history books as the goat, to forget that without his wondrous performance up to that point, the Celtics clearly would not have even been in position to pull this victory out. And that is most likely the way Pierce momentary brain lapse will be remembered, as a wash with his otherwise terrific performance. Dumb, but not a defining moment.

And so these two teams will meet again Saturday night for Game 7 fresh off a memorable, classic Game 6 that, in the end, did not contain a defining moment. They’ll do so in a building next to one that was the setting for many such moments in days of Celtics yore. In a building next to where Havlicek stole the ball, next to where Russell won 11 of 13, next to where Bird and M.L. waved their towels in victory and next to where Kareem wilted in the heat. And maybe Saturday night Celtics fans will get something they almost saw tonight, but not quite, a defining moment for a new generation of Celtics players.”