LeBron James vs Paul Pierce (Single Coverage)

LeBron James vs Paul Pierce.

Historically, LeBron James had scored 30+ points against Paul Pierce in head to head matchups 39 (THIRTY NINE) times, including 5 40 point games.
19 in the regular season – 2 40 point games.
15 in the playoffs – 3 40 point games.

Paul Pierce had scored 30+ points against LeBron James in head to head matchups 6 (SIX) times, including 2 40+ games (1 of those was a 50 point game).

5 in the regular season – 1 50 point game.
1 in the playoffs (easily one of Pierce’s most famous games – 41 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals).

Here are the rest:
41 in December 2003
32 in February 2004
30 in January 2004
34 in December 2004

Their greatest regular season duel came in LeBron’s third year - 43 points (16-32 FGs), 12 rebounds, 11 assists, 4 blocks and 2 turnovers for LeBron in a DOUBLE OVERTIME win against the Celtics. Pierce had 50 points (with 20 free throw attempts plus 7 rebounds and 8 assists).

In this video, which I will tentatively say is PART ONE, are clips where in Pierce is covering LeBron, for the most part, in single coverage.
The end features a pick and roll because that’s about where I plan on picking PART TWO up. With LeBron attacking Pierce on the pick and roll.

All that being said - LISTEN - Paul Pierce is truly underrated as a player. He is over-inflating what he was as a player with all his work as an "analyst" but he went toe to toe with LeBron on both ends at a level unlike anyone has been able to do since. Does a part of that have to do with him being 26 when LeBron came into the league at 18? Sure.
You would think from the above stats that it's just LeBron picking Pierce to pieces but obviously it isn't. Paul was a solid defender. He had a great defensive scheme backing him (Tom Thibodeau was the Celtics associate head coach until 2010) and he had the luxury of Kevin Garnett barking out instructions and shoring up that back line...but you gotta give credit where it's due. A lot of these are tough shots that LeBron is taking and that's largely because Pierce had the ability to force him into them.

Also having presented the stats, it feels a little like Pierce picked on LeBron's teams when he was a fresh face in the league

https://www.12up.com/posts/stats-prov...

https://stathead.com/tiny/j2sLu

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