The Raptors have to learn that they need to stop doing two things when the playoffs come around: letting their GM say explicit words in front of a large crowd regarding opposing teams, and letting fans and media in the city target future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce. Both of these things have happened before the playoffs in each of the past two seasons. They were fined for their GM Masai Ujiri talking about how he “don’t give a s— about ‘it'” in front of a large crowd, in response to words that Paul Pierce said regarding the Raptors.
The Raptors back up point guard, Greivis Vasquez, realizes that they need to stop talking about Pierce. He told reporters on Sunday,
“Man, I’ll tell you this. This is the last day I’m going to answer anything about Paul Pierce. Paul Pierce is a Hall of Famer that knows what he’s doing. Give him a lot of credit. He got you guy’s attention, he got everybody’s attention and if we keep talking about Paul Pierce, this is going to be a Paul Pierce series. It’s not going to be the Wizards, it’s just Paul Pierce. But what he’s doing is motivating his team, trash talking.”
Vasquez, who hit a clutch three to help send the game into overtime on Saturday, clearly is done with all the Paul Pierce talk. He respects what Pierce is doing though.
“We give him a lot of credit. He’s got big balls. That’s the reason he’s the truth.”
When the Wizards coach Randy Wittman was asked about Vasquez’s comments, he responded,
“All NBA balls are the same.”
With jokes aside, Vasquez thinks that all of the talk about Pierce above the border needs to be put to rest.
“I think that (the media) gotta stop asking all of us questions about Paul Pierce,” Vasquez said. “Let him do the talking, and we’ll see at the end who’s going to win the series.”
The Raptors and Wizards play game two of their first round series on Tuesday, and hopefully by then the talk of Paul Pierce will be put to rest and the Raptors can focus on winning. The Raptors are down in the series 0-1 after losing in overtime on Saturday, so they could really use a home win in game 2.
