Paul Pierce at 49: The Truth’s place in Celtics history

Paul Pierce turned 49 on Tuesday, October 13, and the Boston Celtics marked the day by calling him one of the greatest players in franchise history. The club’s birthday post listed a résumé few Celtics can match: the 2008 championship and Finals MVP, 10 All-Star selections, four All-NBA teams, the 2010 3-Point Contest title, a place on the NBA 75th Anniversary Team and the No. 34 hanging in the rafters.

Boston also posted a short highlight reel under the line “You can’t handle The Truth.”

You can't handle The Truth 😤 pic.twitter.com/uyF6brhlc2

— Boston Celtics (@celtics) October 13, 2026

Where he stands in the Celtics record book

The franchise’s own figures, shared alongside the birthday post, put Pierce at or near the top of almost every career list in a club that has won 18 titles:

• First in 3-pointers made (1,823), steals (1,583) and free throws made (6,434)
• Second in points (24,021)
• Third in games (1,102), minutes (40,360) and field goals (7,882)
• Fourth in blocks (668), fifth in assists (4,305) and seventh in rebounds (6,651)

Across 19 seasons with Boston, Brooklyn, Washington and the LA Clippers, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame credits him with 26,397 points, 7,527 rebounds and 4,708 assists.

The 10th pick who nearly went elsewhere

Pierce left Kansas after three seasons and fell to the Celtics at No. 10 in the 1998 draft. Larry Brown, then running Philadelphia, later told NBA.com that Pierce was the highest-rated player on the 76ers’ board when their pick came up at No. 8, but Brown had promised to take Larry Hughes and kept his word. Vince Carter and Dirk Nowitzki were also called before Pierce.

The Boston team he joined had not won a playoff series since Larry Bird retired in 1992.

Eleven stab wounds, then 82 games

In September 2000, Pierce was stabbed 11 times in the neck, face and back at a nightclub in Boston’s Theater District; one wound punctured a lung. He left the hospital after four days, played all 82 games of the 2000-01 season that started about a month later, and averaged 25.3 points, according to NBA.com’s Hall of Fame profile by Steve Aschburner.

That same profile traces his nickname to Shaquille O’Neal, who called him “The Truth” after Pierce scored 42 points against the Los Angeles Lakers. A run of five straight All-Star appearances began the following season.

2008: his own banner

For years Pierce and Antoine Walker carried thin rosters. That changed in the summer of 2007, when Danny Ainge traded for Ray Allen on July 6 and then for Kevin Garnett on July 31. Boston won 29 of its first 32 games, finished 66-16 and beat Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and the Lakers for the franchise’s 17th championship. Pierce averaged 21.8 points, 6.3 assists and 4.5 rebounds in the Finals and was named Finals MVP.

“I’m not living under the shadows of the other greats now. I’m able to make my own history with my time here. If I was going to be one of the best Celtics to ever play, I had to put up a banner.”

Paul Pierce after the 2008 Finals, as quoted by NBA.com

Longtime Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan has argued Pierce deserves the fifth spot on an all-time Celtics lineup beside Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird and John Havlicek, calling him the most complete scorer the city has seen.

After Boston

Boston traded Pierce and Garnett to Brooklyn in 2013. He spent a season there, one in Washington and two with the Clippers before signing a one-day contract to retire as a Celtic in July 2017. The club retired No. 34 on February 11, 2018, and he entered the Hall of Fame in 2021 with Garnett as his presenter.

His own birthday message was short. “Blessed to see another one,” he wrote on Instagram.

Sources: Boston Celtics, NBA History, NBA.com, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Heavy.