Big Three have history of friendship

October 30, 2007

NEW YORK - When Paul Pierce mentions the white Nissan he drove during his days at Inglewood High School, Kevin Garnett laughs. They joke about Cinnabons at the mall and summer Sundays spent driving down Crenshaw Boulevard in that white Nissan. They take turns completing the same story about an AAU tournament victory in Las Vegas, sounding like old friends from way back when.

Garnett reminisces with Ray Allen in similar fashion, recalling weekend pickup games in Columbia, S.C., and a road trip to watch North Carolina State play UConn before a certain shooting guard joined the Huskies' roster.

Long before they reached the NBA, when high school players singularly focused on making the league became fast friends, Garnett met Pierce and Allen. While there were combined workouts in Waltham this offseason, shared meals in Rome and London, and countless photo shoots together throughout training camp, the chemistry shared by Garnett, Pierce, and Allen on and off the court owes something to camaraderie forged in high school. Sitting down recently at the Ritz Carlton-Battery Park to discuss the upcoming season, an interview with all three players quickly became an impromptu story-telling session, a free-flowing give and take that went back more than a decade.

"The guys at my high school didn't care [as much about basketball]," said Allen. "They wanted to hang out. I was trying to do something else.

"[Meeting Garnett through a mutual friend] was refreshing because he came from upstate and had a zest to play basketball. Kev became that guy on weekends that I could roll with. We'd go hoop. That was a bond that we had."

Nodding in agreement, Garnett turned to Allen and added: "I was like a little brother, basically, tagging along. Even though I knew he had been established, getting ready to go to college, I was trying to soak all that up ... You were not an average teenager. I don't know 16-year-olds that talk about the world and issues and read Time magazine. I'm putting sauce on it, but he was really, really mature off the top. He was willing to teach. He was going to tell you what you messed up and what you did well."

Given the way Garnett and Allen described pickup games against players from the University of South Carolina, the pair did a lot of schooling together.

Allen: "When we got on that floor, it was like a steamroller. We were playing against players at [South Carolina] and we just rolled the gym."

Garnett: "I remember that."

Allen: "Steamrolled it."

Garnett: "We're in high school. So, I'm thinking we'll come in and we'll keep up. I'm sure they've got some stuff that we don't know. But we went in there, jumped on the floor, and ... steamrolled them."

Allen: "We just did what we knew we were capable of doing."

Garnett: "We weren't intimidated. They were like, 'Y'all in college? What school y'all go to? We were like, 'We're in high school.' Jo Jo English [former South Carolina star] looked up and was like, 'Aww, there's about to be a problem."'

Pierce listened intently to the exchange, knowing he could relate. Preparing to play an AAU tournament together, Garnett lived with Pierce in LA though they met only days earlier.

"I knew Paul's name, but I didn't know what he looked like," said Garnett as he turned to Pierce. "They showed me a tape. There was a pick and roll at the top of the key. You caught the ball. I said, 'Is that him?' He was kind of wide ... He came off and he was kind of slow. Then, you stood up and you jumped. When he jumped, I was like, 'Damn, that big [guy] can jump.' That's the first thing I was thinking. When he came through the door, he looked nothing like he did on tape. A lot slimmer. That's when he just hosted me. He showed me LA."

Pierce: "We'd go to practice, then I'm constantly showing him around."

Garnett: "One thing I remember right off the top was the Cinnabons. You were like, 'This is how you have to do it, with the icing. When I ate that, I was like, 'Oh, my God.' It made me so sick, but it was so good."

All three laughed.

Pierce: "The crazy thing about it is, after all these years, he still was still the same guy. I'm talking about loud. The first practice at my high school we were just dunking. So many people came to that practice just to see him."

Garnett: "I remember that. It was packed. It was hot."

Pierce: "He started blocking shots. He shouted, 'Aaaaargggh."'

Thankfully, for the Celtics, some things clearly never change.