Paul Pierce Is Right About Celtics-Knicks Rivalry From His Standpoint

When Boston Celtics guard Paul Pierce stated that the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks did not have a rivalry currently going, he can be forgiven since he was merely suffering from an affliction that strikes us all where our most recent experiences form our strongest memories while clouding out what has occurred in the past.  

If a rivalry in sports is when games are played between two storied franchises where the two teams trade victories and defeats, then as far as Pierce is concerned, the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks rivalry that he experienced over his first nine NBA seasons ended when the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

Since Paul Pierce entered the NBA in 1998, the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks had played a total of 48 times before Pierce made his rivalry comments. Their latest contest, a 118-116 thriller in which Pierce hit the game-winning jump shot with 0.4 seconds left on the clock, may very well have changed Pierce's mind, but since the game occurred after Pierce's rivalry statement, I did not include it in the data I examined.

Of those 48 games, a total of 35 of them were played before the Celtics received a formidable amount of elite-level help in the forms of Garnett and Allen.  The Celtics won 22 of those contests (.629 winning percentage), but their victories were not full of blowouts.  

Over the course of the 35 games, the Celtics outscored the Knicks by just 3.4 points per 100 possessions, which is not exactly indicative of a completely lopsided matchup.  Also, the only statistically significant advantage the Celtics had over the Knicks was in avoiding turnovers; the Celtics' superior turnover rate (11.3 to 12.8) and turnovers per possession (0.154 to 0.174) gave the team the edge it needed to control the matchup.  

In every other statistical offensive category, the two teams were pretty evenly matched and their similar numbers are very much characteristic of a rivalry where although one team is winning the majority of the games, the games themselves are closely contested, hard-fought affairs.

While the first 35 games the Celtics played after Pierce arrived in the NBA were fairly competitive, all semblance of a rivalry ended in dramatic fashion the first time the Celtics' Big Three played the New York Knicks and demolished the Knicks in a 45-point rout.  Counting that game and the 12 subsequent ones played before Pierce's comments, the Celtics won 11 of the 13 by 9.8 points per 100 possessions, a completely one-sided affair.

In those 13 games, which included one game in which Pierce, Garnett and Allen did not even suit up, the Celtics were statistically significantly better than the Knicks in effective field goal percentage (0.551 to 0.473), true shooting percentage (0.589 to 0.519), floor percentage* (0.53 to 0.47), field percentage* (0.45 to 0.36) and assist rate (19.1 to 15.2), making Pierce's comments completely understandable.

*Floor percentage is the fraction of a team's possessions on which there is a scoring possession.  Field percentage is the percentage of times a team scores a basket on possessions where no free throws are awarded.

If you had defeated an opponent 11 of 13 times in such a convincing fashion, you, too, would find if laughable if someone came along and tried to tell you that opponent is a rival of yours.

Paul Pierce, himself, appeared in 46 of the 48 games the Celtics and Knicks have played since 1998, and has either slightly exceeded or basically matched his career statistics (with his statistics from the 46 games listed first) in points per game (22.6 to 22.4), effective field goal percentage (0.505 to 0.496), true shooting percentage (0.582 to 0.566), assist percentage (20.5 to 19.2), turnover percentage (12.6 to 13.0), offensive rebounding percentage (3.3 to 3.1), defensive rebounding percentage (15.8 to 16.0), and total rebounding percentage (9.6 to 9.6).

Not knowing Paul Pierce's thinking, I can only surmise that facing an opponent that cannot keep him from putting up numbers he has put up for his career would keep him from truly appreciating that team as an equal.

Once Paul Pierce's experience with the Boston Celtics-New York Knicks game is put into context, it is easy to see why he said what he said.  Perhaps he would have considered the game more of a rivalry if he had been asked that question sometime during his first nine NBA seasons, but after three-plus seasons of manhandling the Knicks, it would be immensely difficult for him to think of the Knicks in the light of a rival.

Since the New York Knicks have finally upgraded their roster and crawled out of the NBA cellar of mediocrity, it is quite possible that the power dynamic between the two franchises is back on more equal footing and there will be a true rivalry between them. Until then, Pierce has no reason to change his thinking.