Lamar Jackson Swears He 'Didn't Pull A Paul Pierce,' Denies Emergency Bathroom Situation
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Poor Paul Pierce. He'll be a Basketball Hall of Famer in a year or two. He's one of the greatest Celtics players of all time. He played through smashed teeth and didn't start one season late despite getting stabbed 11 times. He was a tough player and human.
Regardless, the image of Pierce lying limp on a wheelchair during Game 1 of the 2008 NBA Finals, only to return and drain a couple of clutch 3's to help beat the Lakers, has largely come to define him in the dozen years since.
And Pierce was likely minding his own business late Monday night when his name was invoked by Lamar Jackson. The Ravens' quarterback headed to the locker room in the second half of Baltimore's game vs. the Browns due to cramps. He was gone for most of the fourth quarter before trotting back onto the field with two minutes left in the game and triumphantly leading the Ravens to victory.
He certainly didn't look injured or hampered at all while throwing passes and running around the field, leading to some people wondering what was going on. And teammates wondered if this was all just Paul Pierce 2.0.
So Jackson made sure to note that he was not emulating the all-time Celtics great.
"No, I was cramping. I ain't pulling a Paul Pierce," Jackson said. "I didn't pull a Paul Pierce. I was cramping."
"The overthrows, I was cramping. My throwing arm," Jackson added. "And I was telling coach like, I need to get some salt in my system real quick. ... My legs just started cramping, and I'm like bro, I need something now to help me get better real quick. ... We went to the back. ... As I see [Chase McSorley] go down, I'm still stretching. I'm catching an attitude because I'm like man, this ain't going the way we want to. And then I see him go down, and I'm like, we gotta start, we just gotta go out there. And I started running out there."
In a fascinating twist of fate, seemingly everybody on Twitter during the Ravens' eventual 47-42 win jumped to the conclusion that Jackson left the game because he had to spend some time in the bathroom.
It wasn't just jokesters and chuckleheads, either. Robert Griffin III, Jackson's actual teammate who missed the game due to injury, tweeted this:
Interestingly enough, Pierce admitted many years later that his wheelchair trip was directly tied with a need to go to the bathroom.
Jackson, though, wasn't quite ready to make such an admission after Monday's big win.
Jackson can deny it all he wants, and it sounds like he's telling the truth. The world of Twitter, however, will simply never believe him. The jokes are too fun.
