LOS ANGELES — There’s the part of Rasheed Wallace that’s unapologetically transparent.
The frosty postgame beers sitting in his locker. The Flyers cap in the Bruins city. The unstrapped, unorthodox Air Force 1 sneakers he has worn for 11 straight years, unless you count those six minutes in the first half of Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals when he went without them. (Why? “No story,’’ Wallace said. “I just left them at home.’’)
He is who he is.
“There’s no hidden meaning or underlying philosophies with him,’’ Celtics teammate Ray Allen said. “He’s just straightforward. Always.’’
The question as Wallace’s frustrating regular season played out was whether he was the player the Celtics thought he was when they signed him to a three-year deal last summer.
Was he the team-first player that became a championship-belt-carrying fan favorite in Detroit? Was he the referees’ worst nightmare whose follow-up to a 40-technical foul season in 2000 was 41 the next year? Was he the whip-smart basketball savant or the surly aging veteran?
In truth, he was all of the above. But he was brought to Boston to help the Celtics return to the Finals. The Celtics were able to get there because the Wallace they’ve gotten in the playoffs has been the Wallace they expected.
“Regardless of what Rasheed did for us numbers-wise, we felt like we needed his ability,’’ said Paul Pierce. “His size, his defense, his experience, those are things we wanted from Rasheed. We didn’t ask Rasheed to come in here and start, to average a certain number of points. We needed his presence.’’
Wallace’s postseason impact isn’t measured by numbers (6.5 points, 2.3 rebounds in 17 games) but in moments. The out-of-nowhere 17-point outburst against the Cavaliers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals where he made his first six shots and was stomping mad when his seventh went long off the back iron. The 21-point “go down shooting’’ night in a loss to the Magic in Game 5 of the Eastern finals. He has provided a lift off the bench along with Glen Davis and Tony Allen.
Kevin Garnett has been credited with “slapping’’ — Garnett’s word — the life into Wallace in these playoffs, sitting down with him before his breakout game in Cleveland.
“Sheed and I, we’re just straight up with each other,’’ said Garnett. “A lot of time we probably don’t want to hear what the other one has to say but we respect it. We’ve played countless games against each other. I think the fact that we’ve been playing together this year — matter of fact, I know — we just embraced it.’’
