Paul Pierce has clearly made a difference in the Celtics offense, but tonight was all about the defense for the Celtics, who held the Magic to 56 points on 24.6 percent shooting. Pierce tried to play it off like he wasn't impressed with his team's effort, but given their performance so far this season, he quickly changed his tune.
"A lot of this isn't surprising to me," said Pierce. "I guess when you hold a team to 24 percent, that is kind of impressive. I'm going to say it started with Avery [Bradley], and we fed off of Jermaine [O'Neal] also. Once he got into the face of Dwight Howard, he just said we're not taking this. You're not going to just come down and put your elbows in my face. The team kind of got sparked off of that, fed off of those two guys. Fed off of Avery not allowing them to get into their offense, and off of Jermaine not allowing Howard to get to his spots. And that was huge for us."
