Paul Pierce: It’s Championship or Bust

Despite overwhelming skepticism from anyone outside the Celtics’ organization, Paul has one goal for his team this postseason. Whether or not it’s realistic, remains to be seen. From the Boston Herald: “A championship, man,’ Pierce said. ‘I mean, that’s what we were saying in the preseason. We want to be the champs. That’s the minimum level. I don’t care what our record is. I don’t care how we’ve played. Our minimum level is winning the championship. That’s been our goal since we brought the team together, and that’s not changed.’ But is it realistic? ‘Yeah,’ Pierce said. ‘Without question. Look, there’s no way we can get around the fact that we lost to some bad teams, but we beat some good teams. And at the end of the day, we just have to beat four teams to win it all. We have a chance to do that. It’s going to be 0-0 after Wednesday night. It’s been tough for us. But you can look at everything in different ways. There’s pros and cons, if you want to really look at it. We know we’re not going to have homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs, but at the same time we’ve been one of the best road teams in all of basketball.’ The Celtics also have been the best at rationalizing their transgressions, and this is no time to stop. ‘The thing about it is that all these records, these win-loss records, all go out the window once the playoffs start,’ Pierce said. “We’ve all got a new chance. It’s refreshing. It’s a whole other season. You’ve seen teams that have the best record in the NBA, and they go to the playoffs and don’t win. The way I look at it is that hopefully we’ll play better these last couple of games and then get a new focus about everything. We have to focus and sustain it.”’