Monday Notebook: Pierce Injury Update, Pietrus En Route to Miami?

“Google ‘bone bruises’ and you know it’ll say it can be anywhere between three days, a week, three months, depending on the amount of pain in there…I don’t see it being a month or two. Right now I’m day to day. And that’s the reason I came on the trip.”

Don’t Google Image it, though. At least turn SafeSearch to moderate first.

There’s so much dancing around in that paragraph. He mentions the possibility of three months, then says he doesn’t see it being a month “or two.” If he really didn’t think he could be out for a month, would he have snuck in the “or two” qualifier? The path to Hell is paved with Celtics injury speculation.

Right now Pierce can’t run at full speed, and LeBron James could probably ice tomorrow’s game with ten seconds of Sasha Pavlovic defending him. But despite what Danny Ainge originally indicated, it looks like Mickael Pietrus might be available to join the team on Tuesday, according to Washburn. He’s getting his physical today, and could even start tomorrow, given Doc’s feeling that Marquis Daniels is more valuable coming off the bench and his willingness to throw Pietrus into the lineup without any practice.

“I told you guys, we don’t have any choice this year…Usually, if you did add a player, you would practice and show them (the system). But I don’t think that anyone who gets a player this year, at any point, off of trades or whatever — it’s going to be throw them in the fire and figure it out. That’s the year we’re going to have.”

Pietrus, even with his recent injury history and total ignorance of the Celtics’ playbook, strikes me as a better option than Pavlovic. His responsibility would be to check LeBron James, and even though he’s better matched for Wade, he’s really the only capable option and he doesn’t require a lot of practice to know the job. He checked James exclusively in the Magic’s 2009 ECF win against the Cavs, and offered some positive insights on how to do it.

“I feel I can stay with him, get in front of him, get my feet set and go out there and fight,” Pietrus said of defending James…”Defense is not something you work on; it’s something you commit to mentally. If you want to be the best player you can be, you have to be mentally crazy about basketball.”

James scored a lot in that series, but Pietrus did a good job challenging his jump shot (less so keeping him from the basket). Who do you give the start? Assuming Pietrus can even get through holiday airport security in time to play tomorrow, do you…Pietrust him?