Lakers query Pierce's dramatic return

By Steve Keating

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Lakers have suggested the dramatic return of Paul Pierce from a knee injury to spark the Boston Celtics to a 98-88 win in the opening game of the NBA finals may have been more manufactured than magic.

"Paul got carried off and was back on his feet in a minute," Lakers' coach Phil Jackson told reporters. "I don't know if the angels visited him at halftime or in that timeout period that he had or not, but he didn't even limp when he came back out on the floor.

"I don't know what was going on there. Was (evangelist) Oral Roberts back there in their locker room?"

With the Lakers building momentum, Boston's championship dreams looked ready to turn into a nightmare in the third quarter of Thursday night's game when Pierce collided with a team mate Kendrick Perkins and crumpled to the floor clutching his right knee.

The hushed crowd looked on as the Celtics captain was helped off the court and then wheeled to the locker room in a wheelchair.

But after testing the knee, Pierce made a stunning return igniting the Celtics with back-to-back three-pointers to help propel the Eastern conference champions into a 75-71 lead they would build into a Game One win.

Pierce said on Friday, his knee was still sore and if Game Two was that night he probably would not be able to play. With the game not scheduled until Sunday he expects to be ready.

"I think there's a great chance I'll play on Sunday, just knowing myself, knowing my threshold for pain," said Pierce.

"Thank goodness for the schedule being that we get a couple days now.

"I've never had any knee problems in my career, so it was real scary once a felt a sharp pain in it.

"It was crazy to me because I've never been carried off the court. I said, 'I have to be close to death or blood everywhere for me to get carried off'. It was sort of embarrassing.

"If I get carried off the next time, there's no way I'm going to come back."

While Pierce had no response to the Lakers skepticism about his injury, team mates quickly to jump to his defense.

"It's not up to them to approve or disapprove or to judge," said Kevin Garnett. "The man got carried off the court.

"I know he made it probably look a little easy but at the same time, they wasn't over there seeing him grimacing.