Last summer, Paul Pierce joined the Washington Wizards in one of the marquee moves of the 2014 NBA offseason. Throughout his 17th NBA season, Paul provided the budding young D.C. squad with some marvelous performances that allowed them to advance into the playoffs, where he continued to shine. This offseason, we’re looking back at his Top 5 performances of the season.

Starting the list at No. 5 is an early-season outburst by No. 34, where his double-double resulted in a big victory on the road.

No. 5—Nov. 22, 2014: Doubling Up On The Bucks

The 2014-15 season got off to an impressive start for Paul and his new team in the nation’s capital. But it wasn’t until the 12th game of the season, Washington’s second matchup of the year with the Milwaukee Bucks, that The Truth provided his first real “wow” moment with the Wizards.

On the tail end of a back-to-back, with his teammates worn out from a win the night prior in Cleveland, No. 34 put the Wiz on his back in Milwaukee. He tallied 25 points and pulled down 10-rebounds for his first double-double of the season to lead Washington a 111-100 win at the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

Washington Wizards v Milwaukee Bucks

It was the first signature performance for No. 34 in Wizards Red, White and Blue and the way he turned back the clock with such ease left his teammates astonished. After the 37-year-old had just torched the young Bucks for 25 and 10, Washington star shooting guard Bradley Beal, who came off the bench in the game after missing the first few weeks of the season due to injury, gave Paul props on a job well done.

“They don’t call him ‘The Truth’ for no reason, man,” Beal said.

The Truth is, Paul had some extra motivation going into that seemingly innocent Saturday night showdown in Milwaukee. The team’s first meeting with the Bucks—Washington’s home opener—was one he would rather forget. Though the Wizards won the game, they did so without No. 34 after he was ejected for arguing with an official late in the first half. He exited the game without having made a shot from the field and finished with two points, four rebounds, three assists and a steal in just 16 minutes.

Though the result turned out ok for Washington, Paul still felt he had let the team down. It was a far cry from the first impression he was hoping to make in his new home city and afterward he lamented the foolish mistake on his part.

“I actually apologized. You put your team in a bad position,” he said. “It was a one- or two-point game

[at the time]. It could be costly for your teammates so I actually apologized.”

Milwaukee Bucks v Washington Wizards

Exactly three weeks later, the Wizards were on the road in Milwaukee one night removed from a grueling and emotion-filled 91-78 victory over the Cavaliers in Cleveland. That game saw Beal and John Wall carry the load, going toe-to-toe with the Cavs’ dynamic duo of LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.

In his 17th NBA season, Paul was well aware of the different roles he needed to play for the Wizards. On most nights, they expected him to play facilitator and be a decoy. So on that Friday night in Cleveland he sat back and had a quiet night with nine points, two assists and five rebounds in a shade under 30 minutes of action. But there were nights — few and far between as they may have been —  when the Wizards needed The Truth to take over and he happily obliged in that role as well.

So that next day in Milwaukee, with his team caught in an emotional hangover from the win in Cleveland the night before, and with his own personal motivations stemming from a disappointing D.C. debut, Paul was determined to make a statement. He intimated as much the night prior.

“Every time you have big emotional wins, you come into the next game and those are the games that are trap games,” Paul said after the win over the Cavs. “And that’s what I try to tell the guys, you know, those are the games that the great teams win. It feels good, hopefully we can put this win behind us and move on because we have another test against a Milwaukee team that’s been playing great.”

Then he went out and delivered.

But victory that night in Milwaukee wasn’t going to come easy.

Though the Wizards identified the trap, it seemed early in the contest that they hadn’t done enough to prevent the trap from being effective. Washington had trouble getting going early and the Bucks quickly jumped out to a 15-point lead. However, Paul wasn’t about to let his team go down without a fight.

No. 34 was the game’s most consistent scorer, putting up at least five points in each period, and his 11 first-half points were instrumental in keeping the Wizards in the game. His personal 5-0 run toward the end of the second quarter trimmed a 12-point deficit down to seven in just 26 seconds, and shortly thereafter, he found point guard John Wall for a trey that brought the Wizards within three. In addition to his 25-point, 10-rebound double-double, The Truth added a pair of assists in his 28 minutes.

Washington Wizards v Milwaukee Bucks

Washington trailed by five heading into the second half, but Paul had already provided his team with the necessary spark; the Wiz took the lead less than four minutes into the second half on a three by Paul by way of a gorgeous pump fake, and Washington led by double digits for much of the fourth quarter.

The game may have been even more fruitful for Paul if not for foul trouble plaguing the future Hall of Famer all evening. Paul eventually fouled out of the game, but not before draining four of his five shots from beyond the arc and giving his team enough juice to earn the win.

That victory capped a string of five wins in six games and was the Wizards’ ninth triumph in their first 12 games, a torrid start for a team with title aspirations. It also helped show the rest of the Eastern Conference that the Wizards were to be taken seriously. In addition to all the tangible benefits of earning the win, Paul told reporters after the game that the victory was huge for the team psychologically.

“We’re growing,” No. 34 said. “We’re continuing to take maturity steps. The first step is how we bounce back after losses and the second step is how we respond after emotional wins in a back-to-back situation. We’re growing, but we still have a lot of growing to do.”

The evening also marked one of the more viral moments of Paul’s season without a ball in his hand.

Late in the contest, after The Truth had fouled out of the game, a young fan wearing a No. 34 Boston Celtics jersey came up to the future Hall of Famer with a pair of sneakers in her hand, and much to her astonishment, Paul grabbed the shoes out of her hand and signed them for her right there on the bench.

https://vine.co/v/O1aTQljImi3

Guiding his team to a victory and giving a long-time fan a moment she’ll remember for a lifetime?

All in a night’s work for The Truth.

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