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Up Close with Pierce and Walker

Following are selected excerpts from Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce's appearance last Tuesday night on ESPN's Up Close with Gary Miller.

Gary Miller asks what the biggest differences are between now and when Rick Pitino was Head Coach of the Boston Celtics:

Antoine Walker: I think the biggest thing right now is being comfortable. We are so comfortable right now as a team. With Coach Pitino, it was just in himself and his leaving. That was the whole big topic of discussion: That if we don't win then he is going to leave, and the players felt a lot of pressure. Everybody wanted to win and we didn't want our coach to quit on us. It was that type of pressure. But right now, we are very comfortable. The guys get along great. We have really taken to Coach O'Brien. I think a lot of people don't understand that Coach O'Brien did a lot of the work behind the scenes (before becoming Head Coach). So it was real easy to accept him.

Walker & Pierce in studio

Miller asks about Walker's relationship with Rick Pitino:

Walker: To be honest, in college I owed him a lot. Out of high school in college, he made me a great player. He made me into a pro and I have the utmost respect for him in that sense. But when we got the pros, my first year was great. But during the lockout season, he just seemed to want to go in other directions. He wanted to move me. I was making a lot of money and it was hard to move me in the base year of my contract. He couldn't get it done, so he had to stay with me. It was a working relationship. We respected each other inside the lines, but outside the lines, anything could happen. There was not a lot of positive press being written about me. It made it a difficult situation for myself and my family. My mother really had a problem with it. It was eating her up because there were not a lot of positive things being said about me. The team wasn't winning as well, so that has a lot to do with it.

I wish Coach the best in whatever he does. We had great years - some good times, some bad times. That is the coach that got me to be a professional athlete. I won a national championship with him. I am just trying to move on in my career. I think with Coach O'Brien and the way the team is going right now, we have a chance to squeak into the playoffs and turn this organization around.

Miller asks for Walker's reaction to the following quote by the Pistons' Jerry Stackhouse: "He knows I don't like him. I don't like that shimmy after he does something. There are things on and off the court about him that I don't like and he knows it."

Walker: To be honest, I don't even know. I have never had any problems with Stackhouse. We played him at our place, it was a heated game right around the all-star break. At the end of the game, I was dribbling the ball and Ben Wallace fouled me hard and I went to the foul line and (Stackhouse) got real personal. He kind of caught me off guard. I have no problem with Stackhouse. I think he is a great player. I don't know why he doesn't like me. I have no dislikes about him. I don't know where it came from.

Walker

Miller asks where the shimmy came from:

Walker: In college. When we used to get fast breaks and dunks. We just used to have fun. That is the way I like to play the game, with a lot of emotion. Coach (Pitino) told me I have to stop doing it if I want to be a consistent all-star in the league. He said other coaches don't like it. It just turned into a big thing. So now I try to stay away from it all together. But that is the way I like to have fun. There is no big thing behind it.

Miller asks the difference in the team's style of play and mentality now as opposed to under Pitino:

Paul Pierce: I think our attitude has changed a lot. I think when Coach (Pitino) left, there was a lot of distraction going on the whole year on whether he was going to stay or leave. Once he left and we kind of cleared the air with our guys, we said to ourselves that it can go either way. We can either go completely downhill or we can turn this thing around. Guys took it upon themselves and decided to turn this thing around and now we are fighting for a playoff spot.

Miller wonders that if the Celtics are really the same group of guys, then why is the team doing so much better?

Pierce: There were a lot of distractions with Coach Pitino. One week, he'd say he was thinking about leaving. We didn't know what was going on. I think the air finally cleared and Coach O'Brien took over. It was like a whole new season all of the sudden. It was a fresh start for us. Guys starting gaining confidence and we just went from there.

Miller asks Pierce if the Celtics quit on Pitino:

Pierce: Coach is his own man and he is going to make his own decisions. He was in a difficult situation. He wanted to win right away. It was his fourth year and he made a lot of promises. I think he put a lot of things on himself. He guaranteed the playoffs in his third year and we didn't make it. This year, he said if we didn't improve considerably, that he would leave. I think he put a lot of pressure on himself.

Miller remembers that Pitino called Pierce was one of his favorites. Why did he feel that way?

Pierce: I think over the last three years, we developed a very good relationship. Especially after my incident this year, with me being in the hospital. He was there for me everyday. It helped us to grow together in our relationship off the court. That is when I really got to know him as a person off the court. I had a lot of one-on-one meetings with him in his office, and I think that helped us grow stronger. He was my first NBA coach, so he was the only one I really knew. So I consider him the one who brought me in. He was the one who started me off.

Walker, Pierce & Miller

Miller asks Pierce the differences between other coaches and his former coaches Roy Williams (Head Coach at the University of Kansas) and Rick Pitino:

Pierce: What you get out of those two coaches is a lot of discipline. They are two hardnosed coaches that want to win more than anybody in the world. Playing for coach Williams, it was a lot of fun, especially as a college kid. Just knowing how hard he would work you. Then you come to the NBA level and you get a similar type guy who wants to win so much. Both of them are truly great coaches and ones that really helped my development not just as a player, but also as a person.

Miller asks Pierce how he came back so fast from the off-the-court incident in which he was injured earlier in the year:

Pierce: I think the support from family and friends and all the love I got from everybody. That had a lot to do with it. I think on the inside, I knew I wouldn't be out a long time. I think maybe it sounded worse than it was. Maybe I didn't know the severity of it. But I knew I wanted to come back and I knew I wanted to come back strong.

Miller asks Walker how the team reacted to the news and then their reaction to how fast Pierce came back:

Walker: It was very difficult for us. Obviously, basketball gets thrown out of the way when something like that happens. We were just concerned with his safety and making sure he was OK. Through the process, I think the best thing for him was coming around - coming to practice. Just watching and being around. Guys kept his mind off it. Obviously, I never went through anything like that. He is a bigger man than any of us could ever be. It was just unbelievable how he came back and how quick he came back. We weren't expecting him back until a month after the season started, and he was back in the preseason.

Miller asks about when Walker was robbed at gun point last summer and how it has effected his thinking:

Walker: It put a lot of things in perspective for me. It makes you a target in a sense that you don't want to be in. When you are young and you make a lot of money and are out in the limelight, there are a lot of people that are envious and jealous of you. I don't want it to stop me from enjoying life and enjoying nice things in life, but I try to make myself more cautious of where I go and when I do go places, I make sure I have a group of friends around me. Not necessarily a way to keep trouble away, just to monitor me. To watch my back. I try to go to places I feel I will be safe and make sure I go out with friends.

Miller asks if his off court incident has changed how Pierce handles himself when he goes out:

Pierce: I am more cautious in some of the things I do. I am more aware of my surroundings. I have a security guard now. It is the position we are put in. We are NBA players, people are going to notice us wherever we are. There are going to be people who are jealous of you and going to want a piece of you. When you go out, you don't want to worry about all of that. When you go out, you go out with your friends or a security guard so you don't have to watch your back all the time.

Miller comments on Walker's wristwatch and bracelet and asks if he has to choose what he is going to wear at certain times:

Walker Yeah, you do. I have a security guard, too. So now, it is a little better. I try to do things a little safer for myself. I didn't want to stop enjoying nice things and having nice things, I still want to live the life I worked very hard for. I think the biggest thing is knowing your surroundings. In my situation, it was real late at night. I was in the city downtown. Sometimes you feel safe in certain areas, and sometimes not. It bothered me for about two months, to be honest with you. Being held at gunpoint was something that had never happened to me. It was very difficult to deal with at the time. But now I have just moved on, and I don't think about it unless I am asked about it.

Email question to Walker: Do you think Boston fans have fully accepted you?

Walker: I think they have. I think now that the attention is on the team and the development of the players. I think they have accepted me. It has been great. To be honest, since coach O'Brien has taken over, it has been unbelievable. The fans have been coming out, we have had sellouts just about every night. They have been very supportive of me and the team. It has made it very easy for me to continue to work hard and play.

Email question to Walker: Who is the better athlete? You or your high school teammate Donovan McNabb?

Walker: I can say Donovan because he played both sports. I never played both sports, so I have to go with Donovan. But I am running a close second.