At long last, the Boston Celtics’ Big Three is on good terms.
You know the story by now. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce were frustrated by Ray Allen’s decision to leave the Celtics for LeBron James and the Miami Heat. For Garnett, in particular, resentment towards Allen had been lingering for a long, long time.
But a photo from the All-Star weekend in February that Pierce posted on Instagram showed things might be heading in the right direction. Then, Allen showed up Sunday for Garnett’s jersey retirement ceremony with the Celtics.
Turns out, it was pretty much all orchestrated by Pierce, who explained how he did it during an appearance Thursday on the “Rich Eisen Show.”
“We went to the All-Star Game, and I just kind of brought Ray over to see where he was at,” Pierce said. “And I was like come on y’all, we’re about to take this picture, we’re about to squash it.
“And then after we took the picture during the All-Star weekend with the 75th Anniversary team, I called Ray and said ‘Look, you’ve got to come to the KG ceremony.’ I don’t know if he was planning on doing it, but I was like, ‘Look you’ve got to come, I think it’ll be epic, I think we need to do it all in the Garden and let everybody know we’re still the Big Three – Boston’s Big Three.’”
Pierce, having essentially served as the bridge between Garnett and Allen all these years, put the responsibility on himself to make sure things got right. That prompted him to urge his two teammates to make sure they were taking proper perspective.
“I’m friends with both of them and I kind of call myself the glue and I had to make that happen,” Pierce said. “So when we were in the back I was like come on man, this is over with. We’re about to take a picture, and we’ve had too many good times with our families and stuff for it to come to this.
“As we all say time heals all wounds, it’s been enough time for us to squash it and say look man, we’ve had too many good times that outweigh the bad times, so it’s time for us to do this.”
So, things seemed good after the All-Star Game. But then Pierce really decided to really roll the dice by inviting Allen to Garnett’s number retirement.
The best part?
“I did not tell Kevin that he was coming,” Pierce said. “That was going to be the big surprise. But we made up during the All-Star weekend, so this was like icing on the cake once he got to KG’s retirement.”
Pierce acknowledged that this hadn’t come out of nowhere, but that he had been laying the groundwork with Garnett for a while to try making amends with Allen.
Given the way the ceremony unfolded, it most certainly did prove to be the icing on the cake.
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