Selfish act could have been team's technical KO

This has been a Celtics playoff series like no other, and that is the understatement of the new millennium. We had enough crazy stuff go on in Games 1-5, what with the blowouts and the responses and road victories and all, but last night we entered a hoop twilight zone in a game that featured the single most unforgivable, untimely, stupid, and flat-out selfish on-court act in the history of the Celtics.

What? You think I'm exaggerating?

Try this. There are 12.9 seconds left in regulation. The Celtics have a 1-point lead. Paul Pierce receives an inbounds pass and is fouled by Jamaal Tinsley. OK, he is fouled pretty hard by Jamaal Tinsley. OK, he is fouled very hard by Jamaal Tinsley, and he is hit in the face, and that's no fun. But all Pierce has to do is walk to the line, sink the two free throws that will put his team up by 3, engage in a little team defense, and walk off the floor, W in hand.

But nooo. Pierce has to be macho. He lashes out with his left arm and is hit with a technical foul. No, seriously. He is thinking about Paul Pierce instead of the team. Reggie Miller sinks the technical free throw, of course. The game winds up in OT. Oh, and the OT is played without Pierce because it is his second technical. He also exits in a classless manner, pulling off his jersey and waving it at the crowd.

There was also the matter of the two free throws Pierce never got to take. They were taken by the man Indiana got to designate, and that was 20-year-old Kendrick Perkins, who had been watching the festivities up to that point, and who missed the first shot to the left and saw the second, as Indiana coach Rick Carlisle put it, "go two-thirds of the way down and spin out."

"I was nervous," Perkins confessed.

Way to go, Paul.