After the Boston Celtics dethroned the Los Angeles Lakers in six games during the 2008 NBA championship, the Celtics’ Big Three struggled to maintain their dominance in the following years.
Paul Pierce was named the finals MVP in their first title together with Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. In their first year, they led the Boston team to 66 wins, which was one of the biggest turnarounds, as the team had struggled with just 24 wins before they entered.
The Celtics dynasty came to an end in 2012 due to injuries and aging, as well as when Allen decided to take his talent to the Miami Heat.
Pierce opened up that LeBron James was their rival from the Cleveland Cavaliers until he joined the Heat to earn his first championships, which made him upset about where Allen took his groove.
“You’ve got to understand, we’ve been battling LeBron for the last four or five years. The Heat are not our rival. It’s LeBron. He’s our rival. Like dude, we just played them in the playoffs a year ago. Like you can’t go play with them….I would’ve been better off him going to the Lakers. And that’s our biggest rival,” Pierce said.
He also noted that they ended up leaving each other with no conversation, after what they had gone through to obtain a title, and the defeats they had suffered.
“The biggest issue was we didn’t have no conversation. If Ray stayed, we could have won two,” Pierce added.
When Ray Allen transferred to Miami from 2012 to 2014, he won his second championship, famously hitting a clutch game-tying three-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals run against the San Antonio Spurs.
The second three-pointer king was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
