Source: Boston Globe / Getty
Trash talk in sports is glorious when fans are forced to eat their words.
Sometimes those words come in the form of having to fulfill outlandish bets that you only placed on yourself. And that’s where we find Paul Pierce Thursday morning after predicting the Boston Celtics would win game two of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks.
The Knicks won, and as promised, Pierce put one foot in front of the other to get to work after presenting quite the ultimatum on Wednesday’s episode of FS1’s Speak.
Paul Pierce earlier today
“If the Celtics lose Game 2 at home, I’m walking here tomorrow, 15 miles! In my robe, no shoes on, barefoot… Put the house on this game!”
(Via @SpeakOnFS1)pic.twitter.com/8lWbyFfZlg
— Fullcourtpass (@Fullcourtpass) May 8, 2025
“If the Celtics lost game two, I promise you I’m walking here tomorrow. I’m walking here, 15 miles. In my robe. No shoes on, barefoot,” he says when host Joy Taylor asks how confident he was they’d win. “I guarantee it. Put the house on this game.”
It turned out that the Celtics legend is a man of his word, and shortly after the Celtics’ loss, he posted a screenshot of his maps app showing his eight-hour 20-mile journey alongside some vomiting emojis.
— Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34) May 8, 2025
He’s documenting the long walk on Instagram, with the first video showing him leaving his home at the crack of dawn, and promising to give updates at the top of every hour.
Paul Pierce actually walking to work at FS1 after saying he’d do it if Celtics lost Game 2 lmao pic.twitter.com/3I6NxEm9Un
— Ryan Glasspiegel (@sportsrapport) May 8, 2025
“I can’t believe the Celtics got me out here like this dog, I got a long way to go,” he says while panning to the sunrise.
“This is crazy dog I can’t believe this. C’s got me out here like this. I’m sweating. So I’m about 4 miles in right now. So I think I got another 16 miles?”
— Paul Pierce https://t.co/XtCAFWofh1 pic.twitter.com/DubV1Jg6ho
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) May 8, 2025
Pierce may be biased since he played for the Celtics for nearly 15 years, and it’s also the place where he won his sole championship, but the New York Knicks going up 2-0 against Boston wasn’t expected, especially since the Knicks lost all four regular-season games against their rivals.
The Knicks came back from a 20-point deficit at the end of the game, thanks to an impressive 23-6 run. It was tied at 91-90, and Jayson Tatum had about 10 seconds to get a shot off, but the ball was knocked out of his hands by Mikal Bridges.
BRUNSON HITS TWO FREE THROWS.
BRIDGES TAKES THE BALL AWAY.
KNICKS TAKE 2-0 SERIES LEAD. pic.twitter.com/NbyRwQri9O
— NBA (@NBA) May 8, 2025
Game two ended eerily similar to game one. Boston lost another 20-point lead due to horrid three-point shooting, and last-minute defensive play from Bridges cemented the win.
Up two games, the Knicks are headed back home to MSG with hopes of a sweep as game three kicks off Saturday.
But before we get there, let’s see how social media is reacting to Pierce, living up to his nickname of ‘The Truth.’
window.addEventListener(‘interaction’, function () {
setTimeout(function () {
var s = document.createElement(‘script’), el = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[ 0 ];
s.async = true;
s.src = ‘https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;
el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el);
}, 1000)
});